


Tell me, would you kill to save a life

by sechenitis



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Blood, Bombs, M/M, Mental Control, Multi, Original Character(s), Panic Attacks, Past Character Death, References to Drugs, Superhero!AU, murders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 20:24:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 100,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8910763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sechenitis/pseuds/sechenitis
Summary: Five years have gone by, but Port Ville still remembers its dearly beloved superhero's last appearance. It's a topic that often comes back, and on which a few headlines still like to ponder. Jongdae, though, remembers it more clearly than everyone else. He was there when everything stopped making sense.





	1. i. a death in the family

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Jongdae's 2k16 birthday  
> Inspired by the comics superheroes I grew up with (especially some of my favourite Batman arcs). Thanks to all those amazing writers who made sure limits didn't appear that solid for my child self.  
> I'd like to think my very special flower who popped into my DMs everyday to make sure I was still inspired. She truly saved me from numerous breakdowns.  
> Thank you to A, and you honestly should all thank her. Thic fic is terrible BUT it's edited. She had to go through the unedited version. Kudos to you, A ♥
> 
> Title comes from Hurricane by 30 Seconds To Mars.

  
**i. a death in the family**

 

_Run. Faster. Faster._

Jongdae’s breath is coming out in short erratic puffs that tear the night apart with small clouds of steam. His heart is swelling in his chest, pressing against his ribcage until it feels like his bones are cracking under the pressure. Under the fear. 

Faster. _Faster_.

He won’t make it in time. The fear, the adrenaline, his soles repeatedly beating the concrete and his cloak flapping in the night - it’s all too real. His senses are going into overdrive, and his pupils, although glued to his goal, catch so many details that flood his mind. Moonlight seeping through rotten planks, the silvery puzzle it paints on the concrete, the piles of containers spurting out in the dark, and the crane hovering over the docks. He can’t even beg for all of this to be a dream because he hears the swell, he tastes the salt on his lips and he can smell the faint hint of essence left by a day of activity lingering in the air. Heize is sobbing in his right ear, and his left ear can’t stop replaying the Bomber’s cheerful voice as it sings _you have thirty minutes, you have thirty minutes, you have thirty minutes, you have — ”_

Jongdae’s scream explodes in the night and blood fills his mouth as he bites down on his tongue, desperately trying to push his body harder. His legs are burning, his lungs are collapsing, but he can’t think about slowing down. He can’t even check the countdown on his watch, can’t get his eyes off the warehouse he’s aiming for as he finally barges in the large alley. It’s close, so close, and Jongdae is running faster than he has ever run before. Relief washes over him, more powerful than any lungful of oxygen he could have breathed, and he allows himself a shallow gasp as tears fill his eyes. 

“I’m here, I’m here,” he breathes out, hoping that his breathless whisper will reach Heize through the communication device. 

He will never know if it did, because Heize’s voice takes over with a broken, desperate cry of Jongdae’s name. He will never know what she wanted to say, but he will spend most of his sleepless nights trying to guess. It’s probably something along the lines of _you’re too late don’t go inside_. On his worst nights, Jongdae always hears a _you’re too late, you killed him_.

But Heize’s words drown in the explosion and the roar pulling the night apart. Jongdae’s feet leave the ground as the blast hits him in full force. Red and angry yellow surround him in slow motion. He spots sparkles spurting out of the inferno and up into the sky, and the toxic taste of essence fills his mouth. His body stops flying up and starts falling down and he’s hit with the certainty that he will never ever stop falling down. 

 

Jongdae’s scream dies in the back of his throat as he crashes against the floor. It merges with his tears and ends up in a gargle on which he chokes as he struggles to break free from his sheets. He faintly hears the fabric crack because of his erratic trashing, but it doesn’t stop him. It feels like there are iron hands closed around his limbs and pressing toxic fingers into his flesh. He wants to scream for help, beg for his life, scream the name that has been haunting his dreams, but nothing comes out of his mouth. His lungs feel like they’re about to explode in his chest, and panic floods his veins. It takes him another desperate gargle and a weak weeping sound to finally manage to grip his bedside table. The wood cracks under his grip, but Jongdae doesn’t let go. He uses the piece of furniture to crawl away from the sheets turned snakes caging his body. 

Hi bedside table falls over as a new spasm runs through Jongdae’s fingers, and he moans when his hands get crushed. Kicking away his sheets, he rolls on his back and brings his hands up to his face. Through the thick veil of haziness and saltiness blocking his vision, he catches patches of red gnawing his knuckles and bruises blooming on his skin. Then the colours fade away, the bruises shrink and disappear. The pain dies out – it always does – and Jongdae blinks, only to see the fire printed all over the back of his eyelids. A peak of panic has him moan in despair. _This_ pain never leaves, and he feels it, along with the grief, swell in his chest and travel back up his throat. He seals his lips, intent on keeping it all buried, just like it has been for the past five years. He also tries not to picture the body he used to know so well blown apart by the bomb, eaten away by the flames, reduced to ashes by red and angry yellow. No matter how hard he tries, the skeleton is still there, in his mind, still hovering over his thoughts. Still dead. 

“Fuck,” Jongdae groans. 

He rolls on his side, knocking his head against his bedside table as he does so. He ignores the fleeting flash of white in his vision and presses his palms against his temples while curling up in a ball. His fingers are shaking, knotting his sweaty hair and scratching his forehead, but Jongdae doesn’t pay attention. Instead, he focuses on the vibrations inside his head, the elusive lines and the discreet hints of electricity — the _waves_.

They come, they go, nervous and agitated peaks of energy. He thinks about what he would do -if it wasn’t his brain but someone else’s — what manipulations he would do so that the agitation would finally calm down. His power is mechanic, instinctive. He would aim for the alpha waves, and he would play with them, tame them until relaxation came, slowly but surely. He tries to picture himself falling into the softness and the peacefulness they bring to other people, but his shaking body, covered in cold sweat, makes sure he remains pinned to the ground with his alpha waves untamed. 

Jongdae cracks under the irony. It’s so laughable, it always has been. He can bend reality, he can make people fall asleep with a brush of his fingers, he can make their brains believe everything is fine even when it’s not. But when it comes to his own mind, he’s helpless and there’s nothing he can’t do except try to breathe in and wait for the memories to fade away. He’s been waiting for five years now. 

“God,” he lets out in a shaking sob. He opens his eyes and there’s nothing but darkness around him. “God,” he repeats, like a mantra. 

He buries his face in his hands, his knuckles now fully healed cracking under the tension still lingering in his fingers. He can still feel the heat of the blast around him, the force that sent him flying upwards, and the cruel realization that he was too late. There’s a skeleton in his mind that once was a body, a body that Jongdae once thought he could save.

He cries as hard as he can, as loudly as his weak body allows him, hoping that eventually, his tears will drown the fact that he was too late for that. 

He was too late. 

 

 

It’s uncharacteristically hot for a mid-June day, and it leaves a feeling of exhaustion in Jongdae’s body. If Port Ville is already melting under the heat even though summer hasn’t technically started yet, he can only dread what August will bring. The sky is blinding as it gets reflected on the thousand windows covering the skyscrapers, and it feels like a dozen of suns are hung up above them, mercilessly aiming for their necks. Jongdae spots a business woman wiping the delicate skin on her collarbones with a look of uneasiness on her beautiful face, and he silently agrees. When he walks past her though, he breathes in a very enjoyable hint of flowery fragrance. He’s pretty sure half of the people in this city – him included – don’t smell that good right now, and it makes him stop and turn around. She looks up, large green eyes catching his, and she smiles, dimples and freckles flooding Jongdae’s vision. It’s a rare sight in Port Ville: a stranger smiling at you instead of staring at their shoes. He considers, for a very brief second, walking to her and asking for her number, or just engage in a nice chat. But it still is Port Ville, and Jongdae knows better. She seems to have learned her lesson too anyway since she looks away first, mildly embarrassed and mortified for having forgotten how deadly this city can be. 

Jongdae keeps on his own path, walking down the street in long strides. He soon leaves the business block behind for a much more cheerful one with much smaller buildings. The mall pops up on every signs and people are now carrying shopping bags instead of briefcases. There’s music flooding the streets coming from small shops, and eruptions of laughter taking over the ruckus of the traffic, but Jongdae doesn’t let it fool him. Port Ville by day has always seemed so wrong to him, too thick and surrealist. It’s all make-believe and disguise, and the smaller streets and the darkness between the high buildings are still there, lurking and waiting. No one can run fast enough from it. Port Ville always wins in the end. 

Someone bumps into him, and the surprise jolts him out of his reverie. He mumbles a short apology for the culprit who has already walked past him, and shuts down his thoughts. The café terrace is only a few feet ahead, and Jongdae focuses his senses on not getting killed as he crosses the road. The pastel pink sign of the bar merges surprisingly well with its urban surroundings, but nothing lights up Port Ville like Dahye’s smile does. 

Jongdae feels his own face splits up in a soft smile as he joins her at one of the pastel green tables. She’s not dressed like the other customers as nothing in her outfit implies distraction or pleasure, but she still greets him with the widest smile and the brightest eyes. 

“You look like shit,” she says in lieu of a greeting. 

“Hello to you too,” Jongdae retorts. 

He sits down and allows himself a pleased sigh at the coldness of the chair shielded from the sun by the large square parasols. When he looks up, Dahye’s almond-shapped eyes are scrutinizing. They’ve known each other for quite some time already, but she only developed that look after her first sessions in the interrogation room at the police station, to Jongdae’s dismay. Pinned down by the intensity of her gaze, he can’t even look away, let alone think of a lie to throw at her when she’ll figure out why he looks exhausted. Because Dahye always figures it out. 

“Another dream?” she asks. 

Her voice drowns in the noisiness of the warm Friday afternoon, but not before it has reached Jongdae’s ears. She’s extremely efficient, Jongdae has known it for a while now, but his inability to lie to her still frustrates him. He gives her a sharp nod, and she sighs, slowly shaking her head. The gesture wakes up her delicate citrus perfume, and Jongdae can’t help but smile as it reaches him. Today, she’s wearing her long hair down, and the define muscles of her arms are hidden by a jacket. He can’t help but feel a bit jealous of how much she’s grown up in the past five years, of everything she’s accomplished. As though reading his thoughts, she flashes him a severe look. 

“You need to let go, Jongdae. You can’t keep on going like this.”

“You sure make it look easy to do,” he snaps back, way more aggressively than he wanted. 

Dahye doesn’t look hurt. She’s moved past the hurt point somewhere during those five years of Jongdae being more aggressive than he wanted, but the slight twitch of her mouth is enough to make the guilt swell in his chest. He’s going to choke on it sooner or later, and he’ll die staring at his worst mistakes straight in the eyes. Hurting Dahye will always be one of them. 

“I stopped blaming myself,” she says. “And I did everything I could to keep helping this city.” Her fingers instinctively follow the edges of her police badge over her jacket, and determination floods her eyes. “It’s not the same costume now, but at least I’m still doing some good.”

“I know what you’re going to say, please –”

“You need to get back out there, Jongdae. Port Ville needs you.”

“–don’t,” Jongdae finishes. 

They exchange a look, Dahye’s eyes strong and judging and Jongdae’s fleeting and tired. 

“Port Ville needs Alpha,” she adds in a low voice. 

Her voice slightly drops at the end of her sentence, and her eyes quickly scan their surroundings before blinking back to Jongdae. She frowns at the little smile tugging at his lips, and her perplexed look only makes Jongdae’s smile widen. Sixteen-year-old Dahye loved to act like a spy, and it’s no surprise that twenty-four-year-old Dahye still enjoys the rush of adrenaline and the secrecy even though it’s been years since their last secret faded away. She hasn’t lost any of her reflexes, and neither did Jongdae. As soon as the Alpha name left Dahye’s mouth, he was already plastering his best neutral look on his face. 

“Port Ville has everything it needs,” Jongdae says. He already feels lighter, brighter and Dahye has everything to do with it. “It already has a badass police detective.”

Dahye snorts. She sits up, and the intimacy she had created with her last sentence dies out.

“The badass police detective is breaking her teeth on her current case. I’m not giving much of my career right now.”

“The jewellery burglars? What are so special about them?”

Old habits die hard, and it’s so easy to fall back on supposedly forgotten patterns. The agitation around them fades out until Jongdae’s senses are all focused on Dahye. She has brought in several criminals but she looks genuinely frustrated about those that newspapers have been calling the Invisible Burglars. Jongdae has followed the headlines with more interest than he should have, but as a police officer, Dahye obviously knows more about the case. He is craving details, and he knows his best friend well enough to read the wrinkles mapping the corners of her eyes. Dahye is about to give him everything she knows. 

“All we know for sure is that there are several of them, but we don’t even know exactly how many. They choose the jewellery shops randomly, with a certain liking for smaller ones. They never steal everything, and instead focus on a few items only, which makes them dangerously organized. And very quick.”

Jongdae nods. 

“What about their M.O?” he asks before Dahye can say anything more. He needs details, not the same worn-out facts that have been written and rewritten in the newspapers. “How do they manage to get past the security systems?”

She slightly squirms, uneasy, and looks away. Jongdae catches a new wave of details, from her fingers gripped on the edge of the table to the way she bites her inner cheek. He can’t help his heart from speeding up in response, adrenaline already warming his blood with expectation. 

“Dahye?”

“They’re using the same M.O Thorne’s henchmen used to.”

The name hits Jongdae like a freight train. He freezes as the adrenaline in his veins turns to poison. There’s an iron hand closing around his heart and pointy teeth scraping his bones. Dahye flashes him a worried look, but Jongdae is already long past the point of reacting. His mind fills with flashes he’d give anything to forget, old ghosts that gladly rise from the dust, and his eardrums shrink under those very same intonations that keep haunting his nights. _You have thirty minutes, you have thirty minutes, you have thirty minutes._

He faintly hears a feminine voice ask if they wish to order now, and Dahye’s answer doesn’t reach his brain. Maxwell Thorne, alias the Bomber, can’t have anything to do with those robberies, because he is currently rotting in a cell. Sure, it’s a comfier cell than Jongdae would have wanted it to be, and he gets to watch TV and play board games with other patients, but it’s still a cell. Pleading mental insanity may have saved him from Port Ville’s prison, it didn’t stop justice from sending him to the asylum. Maxwell Thorne got put away five years ago, Jongdae made sure of that. He cannot have anything to do with the thieves.

“Jongdae?” 

Dahye’s fingers softly close around Jongdae’s wrist, and the tension he can feel in his tendons clash with her gentleness. When he looks up, feeling like there’s a rope tightening around his neck, she meets his eyes with a sad look lurking behind her dark irises. 

“Did you –” Jongdae’s voice cracks and gets drowned by the noisy happiness all around them. He clears his throat. “Did you question him?”

She nods sharply. Her thumb is now softly brushing against the darker veins mapping out the inside of Jongdae’s wrist. 

“Twice, but it wasn’t conclusive. I even asked for an outside psychiatrist to run a psychological evaluation, but he gave me the same bullshit than the doctors of the asylum. Thorne isn’t who he used to be, and he is now expressing sincere remorse about what he’s done, blah blah blah.”

_I like you, little boy, and I’m going to prove it to you. There are plenty of bad guys in this city that would crush you without a second thought, but good old Bomber? Nay, nay, he’s not like that. I’m giving you thirty minutes, my sweet friend. Isn’t that very nice of me? Thirty long minute to celebrate our new friendship. Thirty minutes for you to try and save an old one._

Jongdae pulls his hand away and Dahye’s nails clink against the metallic surface. 

“He’s messing up with you.”

“I know, Jongdae. Trust me, I do. But what am I to do? The Commissioner is getting increasingly annoyed with me. Thinks I’m paranoid, but he doesn’t know Thorne like you and I do.”

Her voice is begging and her eyes pleading. Jongdae doesn’t have to ask her why she didn’t tell him about this sooner, because it’s written all over her face. He wonders what she is reading on his. Anger? Fear? Both? 

_Now, now. Don’t look at me like that, my boy. You’ve just wasted twelve seconds! My first advice as your new best friend is that you should start running immediately._

“Could he be operating from the asylum?” Jongdae asks. 

His whole body feels so rigid that even his tongue struggles to curl around his words. He never realised how violent speaking was. His teeth clash, his tongue hits and his vocal chords snatch the oxygen away from his lungs. His jaws lock and unlock, and Jongdae wonders how much blood is currently dripping down his mouth from the battlefield in his mind. He feels like a time bomb.

“Probably,” Dahye cautiously answers. She keeps scanning him, on the lookout for whatever signs she has learned to recognize during the past five years. “The asylum offers him the perfect alibi.”

Jongdae closes his fists and keeps his eyes on them. There’s a snake whistling in his ears about an old suit waiting under his bed, old weapons that would gladly break free from the thick layers of dust burying them, and an old need for blood and revenge blood to make up for the loss. Jongdae’s breath speeds up. 

“Listen Jongdae, I –” Dahye’s voice is hesitating, but the way her fingers crawl back to Jongdae’s hands is firm and determined. “I know you miss him. I miss him too, and I always will. Sehun was my childhood friend. If Thorne really does have anything to with those thieves, I will bring him in, and he will finally get what he deserves. I promise you I will, okay?”

“I can’t do this,” Jongdae snaps. 

He needs more distance, he needs more space or he’ll choke to death, and Dahye, with her overwhelming voice and her warm eyes, is sucking up all the oxygen around him. He stands up hastily, his chair scraping the concrete with a low rumble. Dahye holds his gaze with a hint of defiance. Her features look sharper than they have ever been. 

“Jongdae –” she starts. 

It’s been five years, five years of _Jongdaes_ and clashes, but her voice doesn’t wear any hints of tiredness. If anything, her love for him and worry are the only things radiating from her soft intonations. Jongdae shakes his head, hoping that the sharp gesture will somehow sweeps away the knowledge that he should be doing the exact same thing for her.

“I’ll call you okay? I just remembered I agreed for an extra shift this afternoon, I can’t stay much longer. Take care of you. Next time, I’ll treat you!”

She deflates but still gives him a nod and a smile, to which he barely answers before turning on his heels and putting as much distance as he can between them. Between him and Maxwell Thorne. It’s just wishful thinking and he knows it: he’s been digging that gap for five years already, but it’s never deep enough, never distant enough. Flashes of his nightmare come back and haunt. He feels like his body is still hung up in the air, and his eyes are still fixed on the inferno raging on a few steps ahead. There’s a cold laugh ringing through his ears, and a skeleton growing in his mind. No matter how many times the scene plays in his head, his body never hits the ground. He just keeps on falling. It just never stops. 

It never will.

 

 

Jongdae's nod comes a second too late for his gesture to appear as polite as it should, but luckily, the couple doesn't seem to mind. The girl flashes him a quick smile as her boyfriend wraps an arm around her waist, and Jongdae steps aside to let them walk out of the room. He follows them with his eyes until they reach the cinema's front doors and step into the darkness of the street. If he remembers well, they were the only ones who bought tickets for the latest showing – a special rerun of Kill Bill Volume I. Week nights aren't the craziest nights, they haven't been in a long time. The opening of a multiplex cinema on the other side of the city didn't help, but people still seem to enjoy the relic Jongdae works in, a remain of a golden age in cinema history. At least, enough do for him to keep his job, which is all that matters. He likes working here. 

Despite being one hundred per cent sure no one else is inside the room, Jongdae only half opens the heavy door to slip inside. Light dives into the room, temporarily fighting off the darkness until, at least, Jongdae closes the door behind him. The Kill Bill credits flashing on the large screen are the only source of light left, but Jongdae doesn't need much more to navigate between the rows and check for any forgotten items or empty popcorn packets. The music is loud, thumping against the wall, and the high notes echo in Jongdae's mind. He pauses and looks up to the screen, to the unknown names coming one after another. It is a beautiful song, soft and sad, and Jongdae's throat constricts around words and memories. Dahye's voice pops in his mind along with her pleading eyes and her determination, and he thinks he hears her intonations in the melody. It's a song about loss and revenge after all, and it's so ironically fitting.

The lights automatically switch on, efficiently jolting him out of his reverie. He blinks the impending wave of memories away and gets back to work. His thoughts seem to be hanging to the song though, because his mind is already full of Maxwell Thorne. The anger he felt when he heard that the criminal – the _murderer_ – had managed to avoid prison is still vivid, and now that Dahye thinks he has been using his so-called insanity as a cover, Jongdae can taste a feral bitterness on the back of his tongue. It's the second time today that he thinks about the box hidden under his bed. He tries not to imagine what he could do, tries not to think of a plan but with the pan flute whistling in his ears and Dahye's voice playing with his sanity, it reveals to be harder than ever. 

Jongdae straightens up and closes his eyes, hoping that the darkness plastered on the back of his eyelids will help him get back to his senses. 

“You can't,” he whispers. “You can't do that, Jongdae.” 

Hearing his name in his own voice forces him out of his daydreaming, and soon enough, he is back in good old reality, working the late night shift in an old cinema instead of planning to kill a murderer. Jongdae breathes in slowly as his senses settle down, leaving behind too vivid memories and powerful desires for revenge. He flashes a quick smile that gets lost in the emptiness around him, and draws back his focus to the seats ahead of him. 

Just as he bends down to pick up creased movie tickets, his senses suddenly get on high alert. Jongdae immediately kneels down and hides behind the seats. His heart speeds up in his chest and he clenches his fingers on the closest seat, his eyes wide open. There's someone in the room, he'd bet his life on it. Someone who was watching him. He still can feel the slight flicker in the air that comes with people moving around him, and he's almost sure he heard someone breathe. A deep, regular breathing.

Jongdae mentally curses. He's not worried about getting harmed or having to deal with someone trying to steal from the cinema. For someone who can heal from just about everything and who has super senses and the ability to play with brain waves, that would top it all. What if it's someone who knows that though? Someone who knows that Jongdae can do _things_ and who has done the maths and realized who he used to be? 

The instruments die down and soon enough the pan flute is the only music left echoing through the room. It goes slower and slower, but the sublime soaring of the melody still takes over the silence. Jongdae can now pick up the unknown breathing. His senses slowly follow the trail, from the light vibrations in the air to the slow breathing, until they reach the source. Behind his closed eyelids, Jongdae easily pictures the stranger, his head turned towards the rows and his body standing by the door. He feels him blink, hears his lashes crash against his cheekbones and his tongue wet his lips. Jongdae's heart slows down, each beat still so strong against his eardrums, and his focus floods his mind, so thick that there's no room left for his own thoughts. He tightens his hold on the seat which creaks under the strength, and opens his eyes. Adrenaline burns through his veins as he suddenly jumps back to his feet.

He's fast. Faster than plain humans, but apparently not fast enough. As soon as Jongdae spurts out from behind the seats, the silhouette, all dressed in black, whirls around with a surprising agility and bolts out of the room. Jongdae curses under his breath and rushes out of the row of seats. He jumps over the steps and sprints towards the still swinging doors. His ears are focused on the hurried steps, his nose picks up a faint smell of musky cologne and his eyes follow invisible whirling in the air trailing after the stranger. He lifts his elbow and uses it to run through the swinging door without flinching when it hits the hard surface. His speed has him crashing against the wall on the other side, straight against one of the multiple frames breaking the monotony of the red velvety wallpapers. He barely registers the black and white poster as glass breaks under the violence of the collision. It digs in his flesh, mercilessly tears veins apart and Jongdae sighs as hot thick blood floods his palm lines. 

Someone chuckles in his back. Jongdae turns around, taken aback, only to meet darkness. The silhouette – it's a man, he realizes – is standing at the end of the corridor, in the small zone of shadows between two cones of light thrown by the spots. Jongdae's eyes fill with black – black hood, black leather jacket, black pants, black shoes. 

“Who are you?” he asks. 

His voice echoes against the corridor's walls. Jongdae refuses to blink, and soon enough the man's body lines print themselves on his irises. Broad shoulders, long legs, slender figure. Holding his wounded hand against his chest, Jongdae takes a tentative step, frowning. The man immediately reacts. He grabs the closest frame and tosses it towards Jongdae. The frame hasn't even reached Jongdae that the man is already out of the corridor, the sound of his soles against the hall's tiled floor filling Jongdae's ears. 

He dodges the frame, thrown with so much strength that it literally splatters against the door behind him. Glass falls down in an oddly musical cascade, but Jongdae is more focused on the sounds coming from the man's hurried escape. He hears the main doors open as he runs down the corridor and barges into the hall just as they close after the stranger. Jongdae speeds up and once again uses his elbow to run through the doors. His race comes to a sudden halt as he slides on the pavement on the other side.

There's nothing but darkness on the street, and no other sound than the usual drumming of Port Ville’s night life. Confused, Jongdae scans the surroundings, from the pools of light to the pavements diving into the night. 

“What the...” he whispers as he turns around to check the street behind him as well. 

There is nothing. The hooded man has disappeared without a trace.

Jongdae freezes. He looks up to the strong silhouette of the building towering over him. It's just darkness against darkness, barely lighter lines separating the night sky from the architecture, but it leaves a deep and unsettling feeling in Jongdae's guts. His eyes stop on the roof, high above his head, and he feels like the top of the building is staring back at him. Nervous, he looks away, checks the streets around him one last time and steps back into the safety of the cinema. 

The harsh lights inside reflect on the blood on his hand, and Jongdae mindlessly watches the wound close, his mind running at full power. More than once, he feels eyes digging through the flesh of his back, and his heart explodes in his chest as he jumps around to stare at nothing but emptiness and silence. No one has ever been able to shake him off like that, but the strength and the speed are not what bother Jongdae the most. 

No, the _chuckle_ does. 

 

The high-pitched tone barely echoes against Jongdae's eardrum since Dahye picks up the phone almost right away. Her voice fills the receiver in too reactive intonations for what she should be doing at almost two a.m. 

“Hey, Jongdae. How was Kill Bill night?”

Jongdae breathes a little too harshly in his phone, and for a short second, Dahye's calm breathing gets drowned in the cracking. Calling her is the first thing he did when he got home, but now that she is waiting on the other side, her attention completely on him, he finds himself at a loss of words. What could he possibly tell her? 

“Jongdae? You there?”

“Yeah, sorry. I blanked out.”

Dahye chuckles in the receiver. She doesn't sound as young as she used to in Jongdae's ear. She had a much lighter voice back then, but he can't figure out if it's the growing up or the loss that gave her her more serious intonations, her deeper huskier syllables. He likes her voice, how bubbly and cheerful it can be when it's not nearing delicate topics, and he likes that he can hear her smile in her words even though it's two a.m and she should be fast asleep by now. 

He slowly deflates on his bed as she breaks the silence again. 

“So I take it it wasn't that eventful,” she teases him. 

“That's the least you could say.”

She snorts, but not loud enough for Jongdae to miss the sound of paper ruffling on her side. He pictures her, so small behind her kitchen table, her pale fingers massaging her temples and her eyes scanning over messy writing she probably knows by heart, and something tightens in his guts. He glances at his TV set, the black screen staring back at him, and wonders with a certain dread what it would flash him if he were to turn on the news channel. 

“Why aren't you sleeping?” he asks in a tentative, careful voice.

“Something came up and I'm worried,” she confesses in a low voice. “You know me, I can't sleep when I'm worried, so I'm just making sure I didn't miss anything before I go to bed.”

“Something?”

He feels, before he hears, the shift in Dahye's voice. 

“Something,” she confirms with a hint of playfulness. “Are you Jongdae? I can't talk to you about it, it's _confidential_.”

“What are you saying?” Jongdae chuckles. “Of course I'm Jongdae.”

“Pity. If you were someone else like... I don't know, Alpha? Then maybe I would have revealed a thing or two. For this city's safety, you know.”

She breaks before he does – she always breaks before he does – and her laugh rings in Jongdae's ear. It's contagious, even over a phone call, and soon enough Jongdae feels his own lips open on a chuckle. Her childlike hiccups soften the thick night lurking behind his bedroom window and the worry that was creeping up on him. He feels the tension fade out from his shoulders and hears her chair scraping against the floor as she moves away from the table. 

“Alright” she finally says with a sigh. Her voice is lighter, and he knows, even without seeing her, that her gaze has let go of the files. “It's actually later than I thought. I should go, tomorrow's gonna be busy.”

“Don't try to lure me in with your big secrets. I don't care what it is.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” she chuckles.

Jongdae snorts. 

“See you tomorrow, Dahye.”

She answers with silence that Jongdae instinctively translates with a nod and a smile. He looks up and meets his TV set's huge eye again. On the black surface, a smaller and almost translucent Jongdae stares back, eyes inevitably falling down to the black space under his bed. Jongdae looks away. 

“Jongdae?”

He answers with silence that Dahye instinctively translates with a nod. 

“Why did you call me?”

“I just wanted to let you know I didn't get killed on my way home.”

“Of course you didn't,” she immediately answers. 

Here comes the heavier voice again, the words full of implied meanings. Jongdae would laugh at it if he wasn't so busy trying not to choke on his need to tell her that superheroes do die. Luckily, she hangs up before he gets all poisonous and toxic, but the sudden lack of her voice leaves him oddly helpless and lonely. He puts his phone on his bed as he listens to his own breathing trying to fight the silence around him. He closes his eyes and lets out a long sigh as he falls back against his mattress, arms spread out on his sides. There's a teenager searching through his parents' fridge two floors above, a young baby crying somewhere in the building and a couple fighting about some random family dinner. He hears his fingers brush the sheet when his lungs empty themselves, his blood rush into his arteries but mostly, he hears the static electricity running across the TV screen the loudest. 

“I won't turn you on,” he says to the darkness painted over his closed eyelids. “I won't.”

No one answers, but the TV set keeps on quietly buzzing. Jongdae sighs and curls on the side while pulling his legs up next to him, suddenly feeling nervous about the space under his bed. He knows what kind of monsters are waiting down there after all. He grabs his pillows and buries his face under, silently hoping they'll give him at least a couple of hours of good sleep before they crawl out and engulf him. 

 

 

Jongdae stares at the big bold headline on the fresh new issue of the Sailor's Gazette. There's a black and white picture under it and he wonders for a brief second why the photographer decided to drop the colours for that one. There's a hint of symmetry and composition which give the shot what could be a sort of artistic vibe if broken glass and dead bodies lying under white sheets weren't filling the foreground. The article spurting out from the bottom edge of the picture is written in much smaller words, but some of them do pop out quite a lot. _Gangs_ , _ambush_ , _settling of scores_ , _no serious leads_.

“Hey, Jongdae! How are you doing?”

Jongdae looks up at a friendly cop holding out his fist. He flashes him a smile and offers his own hand for the famous fist bump the young man – Jihoon – is so fond of. 

“I'm good,” he says, and Jihoon throws him another bright smile. 

He's quite the contrast standing in the middle of a room full of agitated cops, but that's nothing new, really. Jongdae has always thought the uniform looked a bit too large on him. He's still a kid, with less than a year of active duty to his name, but he's been determined and so optimistic since the very first day, which is honestly a true miracle for a member of the Port Ville Police Department. 

Jihoon glances at the newspaper Jongdae is still holding and he winces. 

“I feel bad but I'm actually very grateful Dahye and Frank are on this case. Wouldn't have wanted to end up on that one, trust me. That stuff is messy.”

Jongdae flashes him a slight smile as he puts back the newspaper on Dahye's desk – on which he is currently sitting. 

“Still a proud traffic cop?” he asks. 

Jihoon snorts. “Hey, I'm saving Port Ville's grandmas,” he chuckles. “I'm a true hero, if you will.” He nods towards Dahye's desk. “She's in the Commissioner’s office, probably getting screamed at.”

“It's okay,” Jongdae says. “I'll wait.”

Jihoon nods, holds out his hand and gladly takes another fist bump from Jongdae as a very modest goodbye. Jongdae watches him walk away, his right hand hovering over the gun hanging on his hips, and his bait as strong and manly as it can be considering his boyish figure. Jongdae was there for Jihoon's first day, just like he was there when his partner, Joy, called for backup after her and her previous partner were violently attacked in the Bottoms. Detective Kim Heechul didn't make it, Joy barely did, and Jihoon became the new member of a broken team. 

Jongdae takes a look around him. He spends so much time here that none of Dahye's co-workers question his presence, but they're all obviously too busy to care anyway. He barely slept a couple of hours, but he looks so well rested next to them, and he guesses Dahye won't look any better. He sighs as he takes another look at the headline. 

**THE JEWELLERY BURGLARS GET KILLED DURING ROBBERY**

Jihoon is right. This stuff is going to be messy. 

The wooden door of the Commissioner’s office opens with a bang, and a very frustrated looking Dahye walks out, fire spurting out of her eyes. 

“I really do hope I'll never have to say I told you so, Chief, because I don't want to end up cleaning your fucking mess!” she snaps as she glares over her shoulder. 

She looks like a fury with her dishevelled hair and the angry patches of red on her face. They all step away from her as she walks towards her desk. Angry Dahye is a rare sight, but Jongdae has to admit that when it does happen, she can be impressive. If the whole situation wasn't so explosive, he'd probably laugh at how everyone is peeking at her with a certain nervousness despite how tiny she is. Deep down though, he can't help but feel proud of her. Being a cop in Port Ville isn't easy, and being a woman makes it even more suicidal, but Dahye has been taking over the police department inch by inch since her very first day. There are times when he likes to pretend he taught her how to be that strong and determined, but it's obvious that she's doing it all on her own. 

She freezes when her eyes fall on him, and the burning rage on her face turns to panic.

“Oh fuck,” she curses. “Am I late?” 

Jondgae throws a sandwich tightly wrapped in white paper at her. She catches it and casts him a questioning look. 

“You're not,” he says with a hint of playfulness. “But I figured you wouldn't have the time for Chinese today so I brought sandwiches.”

She looks undecided for a brief second, her blood probably still boiling in her veins, but she lifts the sandwich to her face and sniffs it. 

“Oh god,” she moans. “Is that a chicken curry sandwich?”

Jongdae gives her his best smile, and she deflates, tension leaving her body. She walks up to him, leaves a gentle kiss on his cheek and sits on her desk next to him. Her perfume fills his nose with delicate hints of orange and honey even as she unwraps her sandwich. He watches her profile, from the slight curve of her nose to her red lips as she takes a first bite and hums in pleasure. 

“Where's Frank?” Jongdae finally asks. Frank is the oldest detective of the PVPD, and also Dahye's partner. Jongdae has a sandwich for him in his bag.

She glances at him, a leftover of magma burning in her pupils, and nods towards the Commissioner’s office. 

“Probably trying to stop Chief Do from firing me. I said some nasty stuff in there.”

“No kidding,” Jongdae mumbles. 

She glares at him, but the effect is somehow ruined by her obvious hunger. She licks her lips, her red lipstick fading to a soft pinkish colour, and takes another bite. He watches her blink away from every glance she receives, one second staring down at the wooden floor of the police station and the next one looking up at the dark ceiling. Her fingers work around her sandwich in quick and sharp movements. They tear the paper piece by piece while she pretends that her whole attention is on her lunch, but Jongdae doesn't get fooled. There's a glistening reflection in her eyes that her incessant blinking can't hide. 

She feels his gaze on her, and she glances at him, brows furrowed and eyes wet. He knows her too well to mistake those tears for signs of sadness or despair. She's angry and frustrated. 

“I guess you know about my something now,” she says, nodding towards the newspaper between them. 

Jongdae makes a face. “At length.” 

Dahye takes another look at the Sailor's Gazette and her eyes flash angry red for a short second. 

“It's that stupid reporter, that Park Chan-something. He had to make a big deal out of it, and now everyone in Port Ville thinks there's another gang war coming our way.” She then glares at the Commissioner's office with so much intensity that Jongdae wouldn't be surprise to see the faint shadow on the other side of the windows drop dead. “ _He_ thinks that too, but that's rubbish.” 

Jongdae follows her gaze and comes back to the Sailor’s Gazette. He can hear Commissioner’s low voice threatening Dahye's partner – _keep her in check or I swear I'll make you two traffic cops_ – just like he can see scribbled post-its all over Dahye's desk. 

“That's not what worries you,” he tells her. In the ruckus going on around them, his voice gets lost, but Dahye picks it up. She looks at him with eyes full of seriousness. 

“If I'm right on this whole thing, those burglars _are_ working for Thorne, and now someone is coming after them.”

Jongdae's throat feels like it's made of sandpaper. He flashes Dahye the shadow of a smile. 

“You're worried about Thorne breaking out to settle this mess himself.”

She nods, but the simple gesture scares Jongdae so much. He ended this chapter of his life years ago, and pretending that he had moved on has been keeping his mind busy for so long already. The nightmares are bad enough, and the fact that he remembers perfectly well the smell of gasoline, the heat, the raging roar of the inferno will always keep his conscience pinned to that one moment. He can't have Thorne barging into his life again. Not when he's supposed to come from a time that has long stopped existing. 

“I'm not happy with him being in the asylum instead of the cell he deserves,” Dahye says. “But at least he's locked up.” She throws a frustrated look around her. “No one believes me. They think I'm obsessed with him.”

_I’m giving you thirty minutes, my sweet friend. Isn’t that very nice of me? Thirty long minutes to celebrate our new friendship. Thirty minutes for you to try and save an old one._

Jongdae snorts. 

“You have all the reasons to be,” he says. 

She nods again, but this time, it is more submissive, as though a part of her had already given up on this. She usually stands so tall, despite being smaller than most people, her eyes fierce and powerful and ready to jump into a fight, but this Dahye looks like she has lost the fire inside her. The soft curve of her back dips down, and her eyes don't throw any spark any more but only ashes as she looks at the dusty ground. She's been with him for the past five years, pushing him, holding him. For how long has she been hiding this case from him? How many nights did she spend losing her sleep on the idea that they never stopped the Bomber at all, despite what he did to Sehun? She even went and questioned _him_ , Jongdae remembers. _Two_ times. 

“Tell me what you have,” he says. His voice breaks, fades away in the mess around them, but Jongdae clears his throat and straightens. “Tell me everything,” he repeats. 

 

Dahye's fingers jump from one article to the other, black ink on white paper, white paper pinned on a black board. Jongdae feels like he's reading one of those old comics in which the only colour comes from deadly red of the heroin's lipstick. Right now, the only colour comes from a square picture of a face he hoped for so long he'd never have to see again pinned at the exact centre of the board. Dahye puts her palm on it for support as she tiptoes to reach the higher articles. Jongdae imagines the sound of Thorne's nose breaking, and the feral and heavy odour of blood. 

“Here you have the exact date when Thorne's sentence was made public,” Dahye says, jolting Jongdae out of his reverie. He blinks up to the article she's taping with the tip of her finger. “Internment. Mental instability, blah blah blah.”

She glances at Jongdae over her shoulders, a note of uncertainty still glistening in her eyes. The police badge on her belt catches the artificial light of the meeting room she took him in, and the gun hanging on her hips breaks the natural sweet curve of her waist, but to Jongdae, she looks like the sixteen-year-old Dahye who knocked at his door and told him she knew who he really was more than ever. He smiles to her, and the uncertainty fades away. She reads hints like no one does. 

“It was seven months after Sehun's death,” she continues. Her voice slightly drops on the name, as though she wasn't sure she was allowed to say it, but she doesn't pause. “And two days later, a gang attacks Wright's club. Frank worked on that case. He told me the booze was gone, and the place was a mess. But they didn't take the cash.”

Jongdae frowns and Dahye smiles. 

“I know right?”

Lexie Wright's club is one of the headquarters of Leone Pavoni's gang and probably the place where they launder their black money. It's a very classy club whose thick walls never manage to fully stop the nagging jazz notes that fill the place from invading the streets. Port Ville's high society always have a nice thing to say about Lexie Wright, but the woman is as dangerous and deadly as she is beautiful and mesmerizing. 

“Who attacked the club?” Jongdae asks. 

Dahye's eyes literally sparkle with delight at the question. She raises a finger, dimple digging into the softness of her cheek. 

“No one knows. Pavoni's mob didn't retaliate. Frank told me they thought it was Beaulieu's gang at some point, but the lack of retaliation from Pavoni kind of nipped the case in the bud. And since they didn't take any money anyway--”

“It wasn't an act of war,” Jongdae interrupts. Dahye watches him, excitation flooding her face. “It was a warning.”

She nods furiously. He hears her heart speed up in her chest and reads just as easily on her features what she is thinking. It wakes up old riddles that they solved together in the secrecy of Jongdae's room, their fingers covered with pizza grease. Jongdae can't help the wave of affection and sincere care from flooding him. It's the first time pain doesn't hit him like a freight train as he lets his mind wander to forgotten times.

“Exactly,” Dahye says. “I realised something a couple of months ago when the special Gazette's issue about the last gang war came out. After Thorne's internment, there wasn't any gang war. No one fought.”

“Which doesn't make sense,” Jongdae continues for her. “His gang had a huge territory. Why didn't Beaulieu and Pavoni try to get hold of it after Thorne was out of the picture?”

Dahye steps away from the board, her hand falling back to her waist, and Jongdae's eyes land on the kaleidoscope of colours clashing against the black and white collage. His heart misses a bit. 

“That's why you think he's still in activity. Because his territory is still unclaimed even when it was just there for the taking.” He gestures at the article topping everything else. “And you think the attack of the club was a warning from him, that he wanted to make sure Beaulieu and Pavoni knew he was still there.”

“There had been a few attacks in Thorne's territory during his seven-month long trial,” Dahye confirms. “But everything stopped after the club's robbery. I think that Thorne didn't warn them before because he didn't want to risk jeopardizing his trial. After that, it was a piece of cake. The asylum was the perfect alibi.”

Jongdae looks back at the picture. The longer he stares, the scarier the face gets. The man's nose seems to be growing until it becomes as sharp as a blade, and his cheekbones slowly shrink into his cheeks, giving his eyes a dead look completed by heavy eyelids. This is the face of the man who terrorized Port Ville for months before Jongdae and Dahye finally managed to bring him in. It took the PVPD around a week to find every bomb he had hidden in the city, and a lot of them blew up before they even had a chance to defuse them.

“The bombs...” Jongdae whispers. He blinks and draws back his attention on Dahye. “There wasn't a single bomb since he got interned in the asylum.”

Dahye nods. “It would be too obvious, wouldn't it? Robberies followed by bombs blowing up to cover any proofs?” She shakes her head. “No. He's being very clever on that one, but I know it's him. I just do.”

Jongdae slowly nods. She probably has a dozens of arguments ready to be thrown at him, but Jondgae doesn't want to hear what she thinks. There's a giant board, covered in white and ink, and a too detailed picture of Maxwell Thorne and if that alone isn't a proof that Dahye is too caught up in the case, her hungry looks towards the press clippings complete her lack of impartiality. But as Jongdae gets closer to the board, he can feel himself being assaulted by the hundreds of reasons why neither Dahye nor him will ever be objective when it comes to the Bomber. Flashes of Thorne's mad smile when Jongdae finally found him flood his mind. The asshole was singing Alice in Wonderland's rabbit's song. Jongdae can still hear the husky intonations. 

_I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. No time to say hello, goodbye--_

“This is all you have?” he asks Dahye, his eyes scanning every press clipping. 

He doesn't need to glance at her to know she's nodding. He can feel her eyes watching him, but Jongdae keeps his on the board. He goes over every circled word, every note Dahye scribbled. He reads _Thorne's M.O_ several times, follows white lines linking several articles, and stares at Port Ville's map for a couple of minutes. Dahye has highlighted the places that were attacked, circled the one neighbourhood where nothing happened, raised a huge questioning mark above it that she scribbled probably later with bold letters reading _Thorne's daughter's house_. She doesn't only have arguments, he realizes. She has proofs. She has connections between every case, all of them possibly leading back to Thorne with a little bit of digging. She has proofs that both Pavoni and Beaulieu are keeping away from Thorne's old territory despite being the two most powerful gangs in the city. She has more than enough to be heard by Commissioner Do, but Jongdae wouldn't blame the man for his refusal to accept the idea that Thorne might have played on them all – _again_. Port Ville's mob has always been so intricately mixed to the police and the high society anyway, making it almost impossible to dismember. It is a kind of disease that doesn't create any cure, but only bring corpses and despair. Jongdae tried to fix Port Ville too. It didn't work so well. 

“What is he trying to achieve...?” Jongdae mumbles for himself as he goes over an article about drug trafficking in the Bottoms, Port Ville's less fortunate neighbourhood. It is a small island, connected to the coast by three bridges, and it's also the mob's top market. The article talks at length about this new very addictive drug that apparently wasn't introduced by Beaulieu and Pavoni. It ends with a questioning tone about the possibility of a new gang emerging in Port Ville, and the civil war that might result from it. 

Jongdae glances at Dahye, who shrugs. 

“Power? Money? What has he ever tried to achieve?”

“But he can't enjoy power nor money where he is right now,” Jongdae argues.

“Hopefully, he will never be able to.”

Jongdae turns around to look into Dahye's face. 

“I know it would require more digging,” she says, on the defensive. “But as long as Do doesn't believe me, my hands are tied.”

Jongdae slightly frowns, but then it hits him. Dahye's excitement, the fact that she showed him the black board, and that she let him take a closer look himself. She's not only sharing what has been weighing on her shoulders for the past couple of months, she's luring him. His heart drops in his chest and he steps away from the board. Dahye catches on, and she opens her mouth, her eyes already pleading. Thankfully, this is when the door of the meeting room opens, taking them both by surprise. 

Dahye's partner, Frank, walks into the room and Jongdae internally shakes himself. 

“Here you are,” Frank greets them both with his usual husky voice. 

He's the walking stereotype of a cop from the gangster age, from the hat to the leather holster strapping his chest. He lived Port Ville's last gang war, and many other cases, which makes him a sort of legend amongst the PVPD, especially when it comes to newest recruits, but to Jongdae, he's the surly grizzled man who told Dahye on her first day that Port Ville would probably turn her into an alcoholic, while taking a sip from his own flask. 

“Hey Frank,” Jongdae greets him back. 

He catches Frank's grey eyes going from Dahye's face to the black board. The cop then empties his lungs with a long and heavy sigh. 

“I hope you're here to knock some sense into her,” he tells Jongdae. “She's going to get herself fired and I'll have to find a new partner.” 

He points at Dahye. 

“D'you hear that? I'll have to find myself a new partner and it'll probably be an overexcited newbie, like Jihoon. I worked too hard on you kid, please, I'm begging you,” he says, linking his fingers in a pleading prayer. “Don't mess it up.”

Dahye snorts, but Jongdae is relieved to see that she also stepped away from the board. Frank has delayed what she wanted to ask him, but she's been tottering around the topic far too many times these past few days for Jongdae to hope that she will drop it. He deems it better to play it safe and run while he still can, so he grabs his jacket and gestures towards the plastic bag with Frank's sandwich. 

“I brought you lunch,” Jongdae says. Dahye desperately tries to catch his gaze, but Jongdae's eyes remain glued to Frank's. “Don't be a douche to my best friend, okay?”

Frank lets out a peal of laughter. 

“I did save her from getting fired today, didn't I?”

“That's why I'm leaving you the sandwich,” Jongdae answers with a wink. 

He turns around, and Dahye's face fills his vision. He can almost hear her thinking about random excuses so that he would stay longer, and he really hopes that she also can hear him silently pleading her not to. She'll re-enter the fray, probably not later than tonight, but his escape will at least earn him a couple of hours to think about what he'll say to her. 

“I'll see you later, Dahye,” he throws with his most cheerful voice before nodding towards Frank. 

He catches her deflate from the corner of his eyes, but he doesn't let it stop him. He also catches the black board, with its infinity of white stains and the mix of colours at its centre, but he doesn't slow down, doesn't hesitate. It was a mistake to ask about her case, a mistake to follow her into that room, and an even bigger one to have looked at that board. Fortunately, he has become quite used to making mistakes which makes him an expert at running away from them. It usually comes with a game of pretend, pretend that he's not being a coward. Pretend he's not hurting Dahye. 

Pretend he doesn't catch her disappointed and pleading look right before the door closes.

 

 

The horizon line, broken by Port Ville's architecture, looks hypnotizing, nagging. Bright orange and pink streaks reflect against Jongdae’s windows, and he can only watch, powerless, as the day slowly fades out. Minutes pass by on the DVD player, hours die out, and Jongdae looks Port Ville's street lights turn on, one by one. He has always found it easier to fight his demons when it was daylight, because he could see them coming, he could avoid the shadows, but in the night now crawling towards his building, he is an easy prey. Tonight, it will be even harder to win. 

Jongdae lets out a soft sigh as he pushes away the book he was only pretending to read. His fingers are numb from the hours he spent gripping the hard cover as though it was vital. His heart is still beating as fast as it was when he came home after his lunch with Dahye. He ran all the way back home, but what he was desperately trying to outrun never left his side. It's right here, and it's calling him.

Jongdae glances at his bedroom door from over the couch. Breathing is harder than it should be. He has no idea how he is supposed to act and feel now that he's learned that Sehun's killer hasn't been stopped at all. Even worse, he could escape anytime now. Justice hasn't been served, and it could start all over again. The Bomber hacking Port Ville's channel at random hours, the terror, the bombings, the deaths... 

Jongdae's breath catches in his throat, and the book slips out of his hands. It lands on the carpeting with a soft thump, but the sound echoes in his head, repeatedly stabbing his eardrums. He winces, blinks away from his bedroom and closes his eyes. Darkness engulfs him, and colours soon start staining his eyelids, memories painting themselves on the black canvas. The brain-splitting pain fades away as faces fill his mind. Jongdae can't help a small smile from tugging at the corners of his lips at the grins, the glances and laughter he is reminded of. 

His hand knocks into a hard surface, and Jongdae opens his eyes, confused. It takes him a couple of seconds to realize he's standing in front of his bedroom and a couple more to finally give in and push the door open. He steps into the room, his soles silent against the thick carpeting, and glances at the opened window. The horizon is still there, though much darker. There's a faint golden aura rising above the city, thrown there by all the lights, lit-up panels and neon signs. People are coming home after a long day of work, filling Jongdae's ears with tired greetings and relieved chuckles. Life is at its height, noisy and overwhelming, but in Jongdae's room, silence reigns supreme. 

Jongdae draws back his attention on his bed as he walks to it. Glancing over his shoulder – a reflex from a long time ago – he kneels down and shoves his hands under the bed. His fingers knock into something cold, metallic, and they run along sharp edges until they close around the corners. Jongdae tightens his grip and pulls his finding out. The carpeting makes it a bit harder, considering the weight and the size of the large box coming out, but Jongdae doesn't stop pulling until it's completely out. When it is, he steps back, still on his knees, and lays his hands on his thighs. 

The metallic surface of the box catches every hint of light, from the red glow of Jongdae's alarm clock to the neon pink of the sign in front of his bedroom window, but nothing radiates from it. If anything, it looks cold, lethal, as though nothing would ever be able to warm it. Jongdae reaches out and follows the outline off the heavy padlock which locks the box. His fingers slowly close on it, and he tilts it as his other hand plunges under his shirt to seize the key hanging low around his neck. His necklace rattles against the box's side as he slides the key into the keyhole. With a light flick of his wrist, Jongdae unlocks the padlock. It opens with a click that echoes in the room. 

Jongdae stares, his blood turned to ice. It's been so long since the last time he opened that box that he can see little specks of dust whirling around the padlock. He follows them as long as he can, but when they inevitably disappear in the shadows or land softly on the carpeting, he has no other choice than to face the box again. 

“Okay,” he whispers. He rubs his palms together and takes a deep breath before grabbing the edges of the top. “Okay.”

He closes his eyes, locks his jaw and opens the box with too much strength. The top knocks into the bed frame and bounces back, but Jongdae opens his eyes just in time to catch it before it falls back on top of the box. He chuckles slightly. His heart is beating so loudly in his chest that he can't even hear any other sound coming from the streets, and adrenaline floods his veins, burning his muscles one after the other. He's feared that box so much for the past five years, to the extent that it has turned his room into a sort of temple with silence and nightmares as holy beings; it represented everything he had lost and it was there, threatening him under his bed with a voice of its own. Jongdae opened it, and the world hasn't ended. He opened Pandora's box, and now that he's staring at the bundle of tissues, the pictures and other relic of his past, he feels more alive than he ever did those past five years.

He takes the press cuttings lying on top of everything and puts them away without a single glance at the bold titles. ( _Warehouse blows up in the docks: where is Alpha?_ _Second week without Alpha, criminality level rises._ _Are Alpha, Heize and Nightblade dead?_ Six month anniversary since last Alpha apparition: Port Ville mourns her hero) 

His fingers then graze a smooth and light fabric, and Jongdae can't hold back a smile. He grabs the neatly folded piece of clothing and takes it out. The weight on his palms feels familiar, and it welcomes Jongdae with hundreds of memories of the time when it was weighing on his shoulders, engulfing his body in darkness and flapping behind him as he was running on Port Ville's roofs. It still carries the faint smell of sea, with an even lighter hint of gasoline and ashes. Jongdae remembers when he ripped the cloak off his shoulders after Sehun's death, but he also remembers those times when Sehun smoothed it out on his collarbones or when Dahye made sure it wasn't inside out. 

He turns the cape around to check the other side, but his eyes catch another old friend in the trunk. Jongdae lets go of the folded cloak and shoves his hands into the box to pull out an empty pair of eyes staring back at him. He lets out a faint chortle as his fingers automatically find back their spots on the mask he is now holding. The black vinyl material looks alive under the artificial light, almost liquid. Jongdae slowly tilts it on one side, then the other, before drawing back his attention on the box. He straightens up on his knees and rummages through the mess inside, until he finds what he was looking for. His breath catches in his throat, and he reaches out to take two other masks. The dark purple one has softer curves and stretched out edges. It goes a little lower than the other mask, the material mimicking the outline of Dahye's nose. She looked like a bird with this on, like a fierce eagle, all sharpness and precision, and she probably would have made it her code name if it wasn't for the Sailor's Gazette naming her Heize for her constant use of smoke grenades. 

The other mask is dark blue, the exact same shade of the night draping Port Ville, right between the golden glow of the city and the thick black of the sky. It has nothing of Jongdae and Dahye's masks' curves, as it looks much more chiselled. Even the holes for the eyes are made of straight and sharp lines, the inner corner dipping down a bit, to fit Sehun's natural eye shape. Everything on his mask screams blades and knives – he wasn't called Nightblade for nothing after. Jongdae turns it between his fingers with a soft smile. He slowly lifts it up and presses it on his face. The material feels as familiar on his skin as the cape was between his hands, but Jongdae is too aware of the difference between his mask and the one he is wearing. He remembers Sehun's eye smile, how his eyes would turn to slits, the wrinkles hidden by the mask but the mischief still obvious all over Sehun's face. His throat constricts and he pulls off the mask. He carefully puts it on top of the cape.

He looks inside the trunk again, arms dangling over the edge, and his fingers shakily close around an old photograph. Three smiling faces stare back at him, bodies huddled together and limbs tangled. A seventeen-year old Dahye is on the far left, her face somewhat rounder, her features softer. She used to curl her hair back then, so light waves frame her face. She flashes white teeth at the lens, her arm wrapped around Jongdae's waist. He too looks much younger, with his middle parted hair, result of laziness and a sudden lack of caring, and his smaller frame. He follows his own arm to the wide shoulders it is wrapped around, and his heart misses a beat when he catches pointy teeth, soft lips and pale skin. Then it speeds up drastically in his chest when he dwells on the button nose, the roundness of the cheekbones and the playfulness of the eye smile. Jongdae watches as seventeen-year old Sehun laughs at the camera he's holding above the three of them, and it breaks his heart.

He lets go of the trunk and sits back on the carpeting, his eyes still trailing on the picture. They fall on his nineteen-year old self's arm around Sehun's shoulders, and that is only when he notices Sehun's free hand curled around his wrist. It looks tight and almost desperate, his index finger pressing against the inside of Jongdae's wrist while the other fingers dig into his skin.

Dahye and Sehun had been by his side for a year only. Jongdae had been Alpha for three years. Sehun had two years left to live. 

And Jongdae makes up his mind.

 

 

Lexie Wright's is a place with no name, no sign. It doesn't need any. People know it because they've been told how amazing it is, or because they stumbled upon it in the dead of night, drawn to it by mesmerizing jazz melodies. For the wealthiest, Lexie Wright's is a handwritten invitation in a golden envelop which mysteriously ended up in their mail box despite the lack of stamp. For Jongdae, it used to be a source of information, whether he was expecting it or not. He can't remember how many cases he solved just by losing himself for a couple of hours in Lexie Wright's. Whoever you are, the club never meets expectations: it goes beyond them, and it never _ever_ fails to deliver.

Jongdae stands on the opposite street, his eyes jumping from one client to the other at the front doors of the club. A woman is singing inside, her voice husky and drawling but mesmerizing as it hits every note perfectly. Jongdae can't make out the lyrics over the chatter inside the building but he'd bet his life on a love song. A sad, broken song, for those who don't pay attention, but an implied threat for an ex-lover, a promise of revenge, for the others. Lexie Wright never plays only a game at a time, she uses levels and layers like no one else so that even what sort of game she is playing remains a mystery. Jongdae doesn't even want to know how many men have lost their heads – both metaphorically and literally – trying to fathom her. 

He sighs, thinking about the headaches she gave him back then, and finally steps forward. He steps out of the circle of light thrown on the concrete by a lonely street lamp, and walks into the golden glow luring new clients in. The double doors open easily, and Jongdae is sucked into the club by softened lights, luxurious decorations and the comfortable aura the oval room has. It's like travelling back in time; days of glory, frivolity and pleasure brought back to life by the ceiling built in a dome shape and the few columns circling around the room. Small round tables are meticulously spread out, red candles and crystal glasses waiting to be picked up presiding over every single one of them. Everything is simplicity and delicacy, from the wooden stage to the neatly organized wall of alcohol bottles behind the bar, but it is merely a disguise for the inexperienced eye. Nothing has been left to chance. This wouldn't be Lexie Wright's club if it had been.

Jongdae keeps his head low, his face hidden by the large hood he's pulled up. He has to reach his goal as fast as possible, because his ripped jeans and hoodie clash horrendously with the fancy evening wears surrounding him, and he knows from experience how efficient Lexie's men are. He makes his way between the groups of people, slipping between bodies high on adrenaline and alcohol, and dozens of perfumes engulf him. Pieces of conversations fill his mind but none of them stop on him. He hurries up, going from column to column, his head still low. He knows the way by heart, so he stays focused on the very slight frizzling he makes out under the usual background noise of Lexie Wright's. It's easier for him to catch it than to make out the exact words of the too numerous conversation going on around him, because it comes from a communication device, and, well, waves _are_ kind of his things.

_Mid-twenties daddy's boy at the bar acting up_ , a low voice says over the radio frequency Lexie's security guards are using. 

Jongdae presses himself against the back of the column, dipping into the shadow just before a very tall man walks by him. He glances at his broad back and the muscles flexing under the high quality suit and pities the spoiled brat who thought he could rule the roost here. Jongdae is also grateful, because it means one less guard to deal with. 

He walks out of the shadow and hurries towards the very discreet door now only a few steps ahead. Another guard is guarding it, even taller than the first one. His piercing eyes scan the room under furrowed brows, and they flash danger when they land on Jongdae. His right hand immediately flies to his belt, under his fancy jacket.

“Sir –” he starts, but Jongdae jumps over the remaining distance and presses his fingers against the man's temple.

The man's expression turns blank and his arm falls back against his thigh. Billions of connections, waves and frequencies are now opening to Jongdae, welcoming him inside the man's mind, and he plunges deep into it. He pushes the right buttons, triggers the nerves he wants to and distorts the smallest of waves. Then he withdraws with a soft whisper. 

“Tell her I'm here.”

The man doesn't blink, doesn't react. When Jongdae pulls his hand away, the tip of his fingers still tickles from the energy and the hints of electricity he handled. He can't help the smile blooming on his lips. It was easy, merely a push, but it has been so long and, it feels like his body is waking up after centuries of sleep. 

The man steps aside, and Jongdae shoves his hand in his pocket as the guard opens the door for him. He puts the mask on his face in one swift motion and steps forward. It's so easy to fall back into old patterns, so easy, and so relieving, like breathing in a lungful of fresh air. Adrenaline floods his veins, makes his skin crawl under his clothes, and tenses his muscles. He glances over his shoulders as the guard closes the heavy door behind him, and finally draws back his attention to the hallway stretching at his feet. Something crackles on the back of his head, and a blank voice raises over the radio wave. 

_M'am, Alpha coming in._

Jongdae takes in a deep lungful of air. He feels his chest expand, then shrink in as he breathes out. It is time, he thinks, time to go back to what he was five years ago. He blinks, gathers his courage and looks up at the camera he knows is already on him. He stares at the black eye for a couple of seconds, while trying not to let the red cold iris at its centre freeze him on the spot. No one talks back in the radio, but nothing else happens, which is his cue to start walking. He follows with careful steps the narrow corridor, white wallpapers closing in on him. The club's background sounds fade out more and more with every step he takes, the soundproof walls a too powerful obstacle for Jongdae's senses. He could vaguely hear the clatter of cutlery coming from the kitchens when he first entered the corridor, but they're long gone now, along with everything else. Jongdae tries not to focus on his breathing as it slightly speeds up, his nervousness taking the best of him. The sinister metallic creaking of the cameras turning towards him then following him down the hallway doesn't help at all, but the artificial eyes stuck on his nape at least force him to keep his cool. Lexie Wright has never done anything to harm him, or at least not that he knows of – which is actually very different when it comes to her – but she's still part of Port Ville's mob. She has blood on her hands, and probably several police officers watching her every move, waiting for her to make a mistake. Jongdae can't help but feel like he's walking straight into the lion's den.

He finally reaches the end of the corridor, and he stops in front of the only door there. The cameras all tilt back to their original angles, and Jondgae braces himself. The door opens without a sound and two dark eyes dig holes into his face. 

“Baekhyun” Jongdae greets with a slight nod. 

The man staring at him answers with a smile. He has changed quite a bit over the last five years. His hair isn't silvery, like it used to, but now deep black and cut shorter, which gives his piercing eyes even more intensity. Right now, they're wandering on Jongdae's body, from his shoes to the tip of his hood, and when they stop again on the darkness covering Jongdae's face, a playful smile tugs at the corner of his lips. Fully dressed in black, and probably carrying dozens of weapons on him, Baekhyun, Lexie's right-hand man, radiates danger and power. 

“You're not dead,” a light, musical voice says behind Baekhyun. The latter finally steps aside without a word, slightly bowing when Jongdae steps inside the room. 

He's been in Lexie's private office a countless of times before, but he was expecting the years to have changed the place. When he glances around him though, he feels like he's jumped back in time. Everything is there, from the green lamp on the large wooden desk, to the sparkling necklaces hanging from a dozen of nails on the wall behind, without omitting the heavy red velvet curtains hanging here and there. The air is still and thick, heavy with tension and secrecy, both reinforced by the lack of windows. It is really a den, but no lion is sitting on the throne here. Instead, it's a lioness flashing her white teeth at Jongdae in an intense crooked grin. 

Jongdae takes in the woman standing a few feet before him. She's like she's always been: impressive, hypnotizing, and dangerously beautiful. Her golden blonde mane frames her face in wild curls running down her bare back and following her curvy frame, sometimes getting mixed with the sparkling dress she's wearing. She's the oddest mix between innocence and power, her round cheekbones clashing with her long fake lashes and the cold and clever blue of her eyes, but just like the rest of her club, nothing in her appearance has been left to chance. Despite the obvious lack of weapons hidden in her very tight dress, Lexie Wright stands before Jongdae like she’s heavily armed. 

All things reconsidered, she's more of a dragon than a lioness. 

“You seem pretty alive yourself too,” Jongdae finally says in lieu of a greeting. 

Lexie Wright's red lips spread into a somewhat flirty beam. She raises a hand, curls her fingers into thin air and winks at him. 

“I'm a resourceful woman,” she says, almost singsongs, with a playful note in her voice.

Something pops behind Jongdae, and he whirls around, heart jumping up in his throat. Baekhyun smirks at him with a raised eyebrow, his long fingers holding a bottle of champagne he just uncorked. Jongdae forces his breathing to calm down while he recomposes a neutral expression for his face. The hood may be hiding most of his features, he'd rather still not show any weaknesses here. 

“I'm not here to drink with you, Lexie.”

She completely ignores his words, sweeping them away with another smile. Her eyes, whose intensity is beautifully enhanced by the golden eyeliner following their almond shape, burn Jongdae's face. He has never known if she found out who he really is, but that wouldn't even surprise him. She looks at him like she knows each one of his secrets. Which she may, for all he knows. 

“You could have sent me a card,” she continues. She presses a hand on her heart while frowning. “I was so sad.”

She glows, both literally – from the discreet hint of light delicately spread over her soft cheekbones, to the golden dress she's wearing – and metaphorically, her aura suffocating. She's pinning him down with her icy blue eyes. He feels himself shrink until he's smaller than her when she barely reaches his shoulders, even with those vertiginous high heels she's wearing. 

“I saw you,” he tells her. “At the memorial service they did for me.”

Lexie bats her eyes, looking very pleased at Jongdae's words. She's wearing so many masks that he has trouble reading into her and trusting the too obvious sincerity she's displaying on her face. He feels very aware of his surroundings, the lack of emergency exit for him, and the fact that he's never needed one in the couple of years he's come to her doesn't do anything to reassure him. He's also painfully aware of Baekhyun as an outside atom to their conversation. Feeling the skilled assassin move behind his back makes him nervous, so when he catches his scent getting closer, he glances over his shoulder. 

Baekhyun meets his eyes, obviously as pleased as his boss was to see Jongdae that nervous, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, he put a half filled flute of champagne between Jongdae's fingers and joins Lexie in a few strides. He gives her the other flute, which she accepts with a graceful gesture. 

“Thank you, Baekhyun,” she says, her eyes turning soft for a short second as they land on the only man she might trust. When they fly back to Jongdae, they're playful again. “That's how serious I am about my friendship, darling,” she says.

She raises her flute in front of her and smiles at him. 

“To friends who never die,” she cheers, before taking a sip of the sparkling liquid, her gaze still glued to Jongdae. The latter feels the silent compulsion laced in her irises. He raises his own glass and lets his upper lip sink into the alcohol. Baekhyun smiles behind Lexie, and Jongdae wonders for a short second if they poisoned him, before internally laughing at the idea. If there's a thing he knows for sure is that Lexie never plays with such simple rules. 

She draws the flute away from her lips, and turns her head towards Baekhyun. The pair seems to be working with a silent bond that Jongdae cannot grasp, since Baekhyun immediately reacts to her silent order. He takes her flute away from her hand and stands there while she takes a first step towards Jongdae. He visible tenses, and she laughs lightly as she stops right before him, leaving only a few inches between them. Jongdae tilts his head on the side to bury it deeper into the darkness thrown over his features by the hood, and Lexie's smile widens. She lifts her hands and smooths out Jongdae's hoodie on his collarbones.

“If you're not here for the champagne,” she whispers. “Is it too daring to think that you're here for me?”

Jongdae keeps quiet. It's as though the past five years didn't even exist as she plays her favourite game to play with him. He catches the blue sparkles of her eyes from the corner of his, still intent on not meeting her gaze, and the light catching on her highlighter. He can't help but wonder how many men found themselves in his position before being stabbed by her adorable, thin veiny hands.

Lexie stares at him and the silence thickens around them. Jongdae distracts himself with the regular beating of her heart. It never speeds up, never slows down. She's always calm and in control. Finally, she sighs and steps back. 

“I like you better in your full costume,” she says. “Don't you want people to know you're back?”

Jongdae chooses not to answer her question. He has lost too much time beating around the bush, and he now reckons that he has humoured her long enough. 

“I need to ask you something,” he begins, but she interrupts him with another dismissive flick of her wrist. 

She looks into the darkness under his hood for another couple of seconds and finally turns around, back to Baekhyun. 

“I know why you're here,” she says. Her voice has lost the playful note and the flirty intonation. She glances at Baekhyun and takes back her original spot next to him. “I knew you wouldn't be able to resist your past calling you.”

Jongdae freezes. Coming to Lexie was obviously a good idea as she is always aware of what is going on in Port Ville, whether it concerns her gang or Beaulieu's mob, but he wasn't expecting her to confirm his biggest fear with such a patronizing indolence. He thinks about Dahye's black board and the white press cuttings, and ice runs through his veins. He still had a flicker of hope that Thorne wouldn't be involved at all, but Lexie's expression is adamant. Jongdae feels himself getting blown away by the warehouse explosion all over again. 

“You mean – You mean Thorne really is behind it?”

Something close to confusion flickers through Lexie's eyes, but it’s too quick for Jongdae to be sure. Even if it had stayed along with the lighter blue splinters of her irises, he wouldn't have been able to read it anyway. He feels her tense though, and catches the smirk on Baekhyun's lips fall from his face. 

“Thorne?” she repeats. She glances up at Baekhyun, the latter towering over her and draws back her focus on Jongdae, her playful smile back on her lips. “You know the rules, sweetheart. You only have one question, and trust me, it's not the question you want to ask.”

Jondgae frowns. Once again, he's painfully aware of the connection the two share, and how it pushes him away, making him an easy prey for their sick-mind games. Jongdae doesn't want to play anymore, he just wants the truth. 

“What question should I be asking then?” he snaps at her, and her smile only widens. 

“ _Darling_ ” she soughs in her most beautiful honey voice. “What you really want to know is when and where the other members of the so-called Invisible Burglars gang will be going at it again.” 

Her eyes stand out against the beautiful blonde of her hair and all the gold she's wearing, two irises so blue they're almost white. 

“Trust me,” she says with a wide, _so_ wide smile.

 

 

Jongdae lands smoothly on the fire escape stairs, crouching down until his palms press against the metallic surface. It's still warm from the long hours of ruthless sun shining down on Port Ville. Jongdae's landing has sent vibrations through it, making it crawl under him like a snake. He follows the vibrations down to the first floor, and lets his senses crash on the harsh concrete with them. From what he can hear, the alley under him is empty, except not for the cat currently tearing a bin bag open with its claws. Jongdae listens to the feline purr as mountains of fast-food wrapping cascade from the hole it has made, but he quickly draws his attention back on the rest of the street when he remembers the reason of his presence here at this ungodly hour.

He can see the jewellery shop's front window at the corner of the street, clean and almost opaque as the street lamps reflect against it, and he mentally sighs. He was hoping Lexie's indications would be false just so he could then gather the courage to barge into her club again and demand to know everything she does. Her knowing smile as she gave him the address of the shop is still raising big bold question marks in his mind, and he can't shake the feeling that she has played him somehow. His mission comes before his ego though, and if she's right – which she probably is – he'll be able to kill one bird with two stones tonight: he'll stop a robbery _and_ he will get to interrogate some of Thorne's men. With a bit of luck, the whole case will be closed by tomorrow and Thorne will end up once and for all in Port Ville's prison. 

In the meanwhile though, Jongdae has to grin and bear it. Aside from the usual nocturnal sounds of Port Ville's night life, the street is silent and still. The lack of action has Jongdae sighing again, this time out loud, as he gets back up on his feet and decides to sit on the railing. The vinyl of his costume slightly creaks at his movements, and Jongdae imagines it to be his suit protesting at the five years it spent sleeping in his trunk. It still fits him though, albeit larger at some places like his thighs and arms – where he used to be much brawnier. Other than that though, both the black jumpsuit and the long cape felt nothing but familiar when he put them on.

_But it's temporary_ , Jongdae has to remind himself. He just wants to send Thorne where he belongs, and then it'll all go under his bed again. He locked the Alpha part of his life in the trunk for a good reason after all, and he's not ready to face that reason again. 

Feeling himself stumbling closer to topics he does not want to explore, Jongdae mentally shakes himself. He grabs the very large hood still dangling on his back and pulls it up on his head, his features now hidden by both the mask and the thick shadow thrown over them. The street is still dead under him, but he knows better than to hope. Those nights spent waiting for something to go wrong have always been the longest, even when he had Heize's voice joking in his ear, and Sehun rambling next to him. There was one night though, that ended up being very different, and Jongdae cautiously unfolds the memory, his legs dangling off in the void lurking behind him. This is not safe, his mind warns him, this should stay in the limbos of your head for it is lost forever, but for the first time in five years, Jongdae suddenly yearns to have it back. The rain, the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Sehun's lively laugh ringing close to him, the look he had given him –

Jongdae straightens up, his senses suddenly on full alert. He grips the railing on both sides of his thighs and leans forwards. He's heard something on the other side of the alley, he's pretty sure of it. It was discreet, barely distinguishable, but it was there. He internally curses himself and his daydreaming, his eyes now glued to the rooftop across from him. Someone was walking up there, he would bet his life on it, but this doesn't make any sense. The Invisible Burglars gang – or whoever they are – use Thorne's M.O which means van and ground crew, so why would there be anyone on the rooftop? 

Jongdae silently untangles his legs as his knuckles tighten on the railing. He uses his hands for support as he crouches down on the railing. The few feet of void under him thicken, waiting for him to make a mistake and fall over, but Jongdae's balance is stronger, and his eyes too focused on the rooftop to care about the ground anyway. He bites his lips as he mentally jumps on every sound he hears to decipher it. There's his cape hanging down to the metallic platform behind him, the slight breeze ruffling through the detritus on the street, the engine getting closer, and the numerous TV sets blasting news or movie dialogues, but nothing coming from the rooftop. 

Jongdae's eyes go from the top of the fire escape stairs he's currently sitting on to the rooftop on the other side of the alley to gauge the distance. It's an easy jump, one that he could take on his worst days, and he finally decides to go check it for himself. For some reasons, he can't stop thinking about the black silhouette who visited him in the cinema the other day, and it’s making him uneasy and fidgety.

Just when he stands up on the railing, his cape wrapping around him and his leg muscles tensing so that he doesn't fall, a whole bunch of other sounds erupt in the alley under him. Jongdae startles, taken aback by the proximity, and he glances down only to catch six men being very active around a black van. He curses himself and his constant inability of paying attention to _everything_ around him, and immediately forgets the rooftop as he crouches down again on the railing. 

“This time we only go for the wedding rings,” one of the men says in a husky, low voice.

“It breaks my heart to leave all those diamonds behind,” someone grunts, and Jongdae catches one of the men elbowing another. 

“You can stay to steal everything if you want, but don't come crying when the cops will frame your greedy ass.”

Jongdae follows the conversation, eager for a name, anything that would give him the start of a clue. Adrenaline burns his veins as it shoots through his body. He waits perfectly still, like a shadow in the dead of the night until he deems it right to fall on them, like a curse coming from the sky. He mindlessly bites his upper lip as his body keeps leaning forward, inches by inches, until he's feeling gravity gnawing at his calves. The men are now walking away from the van, and getting closer and closer from the stairs Jongdae is sitting on. A few more steps, and he'll have them all at his reach, just a few more steps, a few more inches and he'll be able to take down at least two of them. He tenses, narrows his eyes at the men and readies himself. In five, four, three, two–

A wild scream tears the night apart as one of the man on the back crew is suddenly pulled up, his legs erratically beating the emptiness under his soles. Taken aback, Jongdae watches him as he struggles like a puppet in the night, and it takes him a few blinking to make out the very thin cable and the metal claws in his chest holding him up. The five other mobsters start screaming, pulling their guns out and gathering under their still struggling buddy. His screams have grown thicker and more desperate as blood fills his mouth. 

“Take me down, take me down!” he begs his friend, hands convulsing around the grappling iron in his chest, his intonations ending in a hopeless sob. 

“Shut the fuck up!” one of the men yells at him. 

They're all aiming at the rooftop, turning on themselves and scanning the night sky with their eyes, the tips of their guns jumping from one shadow to the other. Jongdae is climbing up the fire escape, jumping from one railing to the other, his heart beating loudly in his chest. He grabs the edge of the roof and hauls himself up in one swift motion, his gaze still focused on the building on the other side of the alley. The man has stopped screaming, but Jongdae still hears him quietly sobbing. At least he's still alive. As for the five other thieves, they're still erratically searching their surroundings, guns loaded and fingers hovering over the triggers. Jongdae hears their hearts beating so loudly in his ears that it almost jeopardizes his focus. He gains momentum and sets off without hesitating. His legs gather speed and strength, and when he reaches the edge of the roof, he pushes hard on them. He feels his cape fill behind him as he jumps over the alley, his body ripping through air until he lands smoothly on the opposite building and immediately comes to a halt. The cape wraps itself around his limbs, engulfing his body in a cloud of darkness before it finally falls back in place as Jongdae's head snaps on his right. 

He catches a heartbeat too late the silhouette jumping off the roof, but he does hear the screams, as well as the guns shooting. 

“Fuck.”

Jongdae rushes to the edge of the rooftop and glances down, only to catch the silhouette jumping from one man to another, body graceful and lethal, as each impact ends up with a thief collapsing. He moves so fast that Jongdae is pretty sure none of the dozens of bullets shot have reached their target; so fast that by the time hops on the low wall running around the rooftop, the five thieves are down, and the silhouette is standing in the middle of the circle of bodies. He looks up, faceless face aimed at Jongdae, and the latter can't shake the feeling that under the hood, he’s smiling at him. 

The man whirls around, so fast that for a short fleeting moment, Jongdae only sees black on grey. He pulls out something from his belt. It catches the yellowish glow of the street lamp at the corner of the street when it raises, and Jongdae immediately tenses. 

“No! Don't!” he screams, but the man doesn't even flinch. 

He throws the blade, and it cuts the cable neatly. The sixth man falls with a loud thump and a pained moan at the man's feet who, once again, looks up. Jongdae finally jumps off the roof. His body takes in the shock when he lands on the concrete, the vibrations sent through his bones and shaking down his spine, but he straightens up without any harm, and faces the man. He's dressed exactly like he was at the cinema – black hood, black leather jacket, black pants, black shoes – and Jongdae thinks he even catches black eyes under the hood. 

The man slightly tilts his head, seemingly curious as he takes in Jongdae's appearance, and it's quite unsettling. 

“Who are you?” he asks, hoping he sounds more confident than he feels. There are three heartbeats ringing in his ears, which means that the man did kill the five thieves. The sixth one is currently bleeding out at his assailant's feet, whose heartbeat is even calmer than Jongdae's. 

“Who are you working for?” he asks again. 

This time, his tone is harsher, threatening, but it does nothing to break the man's composure. Instead, he straightens and suddenly bows down, with his arms open wide on each side and his head still up towards Jongdae. The obvious playfulness of his posture sends a chill down Jongdae's spine that the low chuckle coming from the man's throat does nothing to ease. He remains in that position for a few seconds, danger and grace sticking to his body lines, from the way his gloved fingers curl up in the air or how his long legs are crossed, and it looks so out of place, so unexpected that Jongdae can't help but stare, mouth agape. 

“What do you think you're doing?” he snaps as the man straightens. 

He takes a first step towards the stranger who reacts in a heartbeat. He grabs Jongdae's wrist and pulls him close with so much strength that Jongdae stumbles forward. His face crashes against the man's elbow who then lets him stagger as an unexpected peak of pain flashes through his nose. Jongdae shakes himself and whirls around, but the man is already running down the alley, towards the lit-up street. He curses under his breath and sets off as well, determined not to let this mysterious man shake him off a second time. He grabs one of the small handle-less blades from one of the thieves’s chest, and speeds up as he aims then throws. 

The hooded man has almost reached the end of the alley, but when Jongdae throws his blade, he turns on the right, and jumps up, his body turning around mid-air before he lands smoothly on a pile of pallets. His hands shoots up, and his fingers close around the blade in a perfect catch. 

“What the fuck,” Jongdae gasps. He clenches his fists and speeds up, adrenaline now flashing white in his eyes. 

The man doesn't waste a second either. He throws the blade back to Jongdae, jumps off the pallets and rushes out of the alley. Jongdae dodges the weapon, and flinches as it easily slices through his cape, but it is nothing in comparison of the disturbing sound it makes when it runs into a body behind him. Jongdae slides down to a halt and looks over his shoulder. He immediately catches the blade now popping out of the sixth thief's chest, exactly where his heart is. 

Jongdae draws back his attention to the man, now perched up on the old street lamp, crouched down on the metal bar who overlaps the road and ends with the dirty glass box containing the powerful bulb. He lifts his fingers to his temple and greets Jongdae with them before he gets back on his feet, runs to the tip of the bar and jumps over to the opposite street lamp across the street. Jongdae grits his teeth as he sprints towards the lamp himself. It takes him less than a couple of seconds to climb it, and even less to jump to the street lamp upstream. The man is still on the right side of the street, jumping from one light to the other, and Jongdae gives his everything to catch up with him on the left side of the street. He doesn't fail to notice that their wild race is taking them closer to more lively streets of Port Ville, and he pushes even harder on his legs with a groan, desperate to catch the man before he reaches the fuller streets. 

He thinks he hears the man chuckling as they run now perfectly in sync, both on their side of the street, and it only infuriates him more. He grabs one of his own knife in his belt and throws it the best he can while still running and jumping from one street lamp to the other. He hears the blade hit a metallic surface with a tinkling sound. When he glances over, the man is already staring at him, frozen on his street lamp in what Jongdae likes to think is a surprised posture. The blade is merely an inch away from his foot.

Jongdae stops on his lamp, high on adrenaline and anger. 

“You weren't expecting that, uh?! Guess you're not the only one who knows how to throw a knife!” he screams. 

The man seizes the blade, and Jongdae sees him struggle over it for a few seconds as he tries to pull it out of the metal bar, his frustration quite obvious. Jongdae would relish on the sight, but he would enjoy _catching_ him even more, so he doesn't waste any more time. He tenses his muscles and jumps over to the street lamp the man is still standing on. He catches the latter's hooded face shooting up at him mid-air, and he already feels the pump of victory ringing through his body – but when he lands on the street lamp, the man has already left it with a graceful jump, the blade in his hand. Jongdae curses loudly as he watches the leather-covered back running down the street. He jumps off the street lamp and sets off after him. 

They have gotten closer to the City, aka Port Ville's business centre, but it also means residential buildings leaving place for nightclubs and other distractions that are now thrumming with life. The crowd thickens around them, the roads fill themselves with cars and busy cabs, and dozens of voices, of smells and faces rain down on Jongdae, attacking his focus inch by inch. He tries not to mind the loud gasps, the pieces of conversation and the confused interrogations he catches, his eyes going from the man's back to the people he mindlessly pushes away as he elbows his way through them. He needs to catch him fast, before something bad happens, and the urge grows in his chest until it pumps anxiety through his veins.

As if reading his mind, the stranger randomly throws Jongdae's blade over his shoulder, and Jongdae has to slow down to push a couple out of the way. He bumps into them with his shoulder, and hears the man's bone cracks before the pair topples over with a scared yelp. 

Jongdae slides to a halt, wincing. He rushes to the man's side, his pained moans filling his ears as his girlfriend tries to help him up. 

“I'm sorry,” Jongdae blurts out, apologetic. He kneels down next to the man and helps him as the latter sits up on the pavement. “I'm sorry,” he repeats. 

He freezes when he catches, through the crowd closing in on him, a white limo driving away, the hooded man sat crossed-leg on the roof. He waves at Jongdae, probably a wild smile on his face, and Jongdae's heart jumps up in his throat. 

“It's you,” the man he bumped into says, and Jongdae draws back his attention on him. He looks pale and dazed as he holds his shoulder with his other hand. “I can't believe you're really back...”

His girlfriend is also watching with wide eyes, her short hair sticking out because of the fall. She's fallen on her face, crushed by her boyfriend's weight, and the concrete has torn apart the delicate dark skin on her cheekbone. Jongdae sends her a sorry look which she probably does not catch because of the hood. He hopes she's not sporting any more wound, her boyfriend's most probably broken shoulder already bad enough. 

“I'm sorry,” Jongdae repeats. 

“Don't be. You saved us,” the man hurriedly says. The longer he stares at Jongdae, the more fidgety the latter gets, and the now roaring sound of cameras clicking around him does nothing to ease him. That wasn't part of his plan, at all. 

The man gestures at the blade lying on the pavement a few feet away with a nod. Jongdae follows his gaze and hastily fetches the weapon. The last thing he wants after this disaster is someone walking around with something like that in their pockets. When he draws back his attention on the couple, they're both still staring at him, but the confusion has left room for two warm smiles that, for some reason, make Jongdae's throat constrict. He slowly gets back on his feet, his cape falling back into place around his body, caging him until it hides his whole body. He sees dozens of faces around him, all watching, gasping or whispering. 

“Where were you Alpha?!” someone screams. It's not bitter, it's actually quite the contrary, and a couple of other voices raise to agree. 

Jongdae doesn't answer. He looks around him, at the smiles thrown his way, and all he wants to do is scream at everyone. He wants to tell them not to get their hopes up, but every time he opens his mouth it ends in a breathless whisper the roaring of the crowd easily drowns. It's so loud that it rings in his ears and echoes through his whole body, so loud that Jongdae almost misses the police siren getting closer. He winces, his thoughts immediately snapping away from the cold lethargy that was creeping up on him to flash Dahye's face through his mind. 

He steps back, and looks down at the couple. 

“Will you be okay?” he asks them. 

The girl gives him a reassuring nod. She's holding her boyfriend against her, and her other hand is already on her phone, probably to call for an ambulance. 

“Go,” she tells him. 

Her voice is so strong, so unfaltering and full of trust, and Jongdae isn't sure what to do with it, or how to feel. He opts for a short nod towards them before he walks to the right side of the crowd, hoping they will get the message and step aside for him. They move in unison, the wall of people opening easily as he walks up to them, and their eyes heavy on his nape. His skin prickles under his suit, and the need to get the hell away from here grows stronger and stronger until it finally seizes his legs and forces him to run. People cheer behind him, probably seeing in his sudden burst of speed something worth being excited about, but Jongdae knows the truth. He hears himself hyperventilates as he dives into a backstreet, he hears himself choking on a quiet sob when he climbs over another fire escape, just like he hears himself giving in to the pending wave of anxiety as he jumps from one roof to another. 

There's nothing heroic about him right now, there hasn't been since Sehun's death. He may wear the suit, he's not Alpha. He's not who he was five years ago, and the realisation fucking hurts. Trying to stop Thorne will only be justice, but it won't mend the past, it won't fix anything. Some things are just lost forever, but Jongdae misses them, so much that he feels like he can't breathe. He hasn't breathed in five years. 

 

 

 

Dahye, sweet beautiful Dahye, makes her presence known in Jongdae's whole building through enraged knocks on Jongdae's door at four in the morning. He's heard her get out of her car with a long list of curses hanging from her lips, and she was probably counting on it, because she's been mumbling _wait 'til I kick your ass, Kim_ since she stepped out of the elevator, all her anger and bite in her voice. Jongdae considers letting her waste her outburst of energy against his door, but then his eyes fall to the suit lying on the floor, and he knows that he needs her by his side more than she needs to scream at him. So he gets off the couch, steps over the Alpha costume, tries not to wince at the memory of his nails scratching his skin because of how desperate he was to take it off, and he opens the door.

Dahye's burning eyes fall on him. Her hair is dishevelled, long strands stuck in knots on the back of her head, and she doesn't wear any make up, but Jongdae knows she's been called to work a few hours earlier. She is, after all, the detective in charge of the Invisible Burglars case. 

Jongdae steps aside wordlessly, and she comes in, just as silently. She freezes upon seeing the Alpha costume on the floor. 

“So it _was_ you,” she says. Her voice is surprisingly flat, surprisingly low. When she looks back at Jongdae, she looks more hurt than angry. “I can't believe you… Why didn't you tell me?”

Jongdae shrugs and closes his door. He glances at the costume, the black spread over the white of his carpeting, and he thinks about Dahye's board back at the police station. 

“You didn't tell me either,” he says. He looks up at her, and she frowns, confused. “You didn't tell me about your investigation on Thorne.”

Her eyes widen, and Jongdae can hear her breath in deeply as she opens his mouth. 

“That's not fair, Jongdae. I was trying to protect you.” Her own words seem to reach her mind with a delay, because her sentence ends abruptly and she considers Jongdae with a sombre look on her face. “You can't do this to me,” she says. “We're in this together. I want Thorne to be stopped just as much as you do. I grew up with Sehun.”

Her last words are cutting, bitter, and accusing. They hit Jongdae in full force, but he knows he deserves the blow. She's been through just as much as him, but when she lost her childhood friend, the boy she shared everything with, she became a police officer so that she could save other people's best friends. Jongdae gave up on Alpha, he gave up on three years of fighting with Dahye, and even longer on his own. He just gave up, and she kept fighting his battles in addition to hers. 

“I'm sorry,” he whispers. He clears his throat, and breathes in deeply. “I'm sorry,” he repeats. 

She watches him, silent but so intense. It's still pitched black outside, so the neon signs facing Jongdae's windows are as flashy as they can get. Pink dances on Dahye's hair and compliments the faint blush she still wears on her cheekbones from her hurried race to Jongdae's apartment door. She doesn't look as angry any more, not even disappointed, she's just... Dahye. Strong and present. 

“It's okay,” she finally says. She blinks, watches Jongdae and sighs as she deflates. 

“I really am, Dahye,” Jongdae continues. “I guess I didn't know how to tell you...” He pauses and tries a tentative light smile. “You did spend the last five years trying to convince me to put the costume back on, and I always said no.”

Dahye snorts, but Jongdae can spot a few wrinkles popping up on the corners of her eyes.

“I did, didn't?” she says. Her eyes naturally fall back on the costume lying on the floor, and she looks distant for a short second, contemplative. She looks almost envious, almost longing. “How was it?”

Jongdae slowly shrugs. 

“It was amazing. And then it was just scary.” 

She nods with a little understanding smile. 

“I can imagine,” she whispers, probably more to herself than for Jongdae. It takes her a few seconds to come back to her senses and to draw back her attention on Jongdae. This time though, her eyes are those of the detective she's become. 

“I'm gonna make ourselves some coffee,” she says. “And then you tell me everything.”

And Jongdae does. The coffee mug grows cold between his fingers as he talks, and his eyes trail on the costume more often than not. He tells her about the picture and how happy they all looked – and when she smiles, he makes a mental note to give it to her – he tells her how easy it was to remember how to deal with Lexie Wright, and how thrilling walking into the club was, how alive he felt. He explains Lexie's clue, and how it took him to the alley, and the Invisible Burglars. She frowns at the mention of the hooded man and sighs when Jongdae sheepishly confesses about their first meeting at the cinema, but she keeps silent even when Jongdae mentions how fast the man was, even compared to him, and how agile and precise he was, how deadly. He only stops when he gets to the couple on the street, and the sound of the broken collarbone fills his mind. When he looks up at her, she gives him a slight smile. 

“He's okay,” she says before he can ask. “He was taken to the hospital when I got there. He didn't look like he was in pain to be honest. The guy was smiling like it was the best day of his life, and don't get me started on the girlfriend.”

Jongdae makes a face. The neon pink reflects on the dark surface of the coffee, giving it a strong chemical look that knots his already upset stomach. 

“I didn't want anyone to know,” he says. 

Dahye doesn't say anything, but he feels her getting closer on the couch where the two of them are now sitting on. Her shoulder softly bumps into Jongdae's, her thigh pressing into his, and when he looks at her, she flashes him a sorry smile. She runs her fingers through his hair.

“I wish I could do something,” she apologies. “But that Park Chanyeol reporter was already there, and there's no way I can make him shut up – trust me I've tried before.”

“Don't worry about that. It was my fault anyway.” 

Dahye looks like she wants to argue, but she drops it with a small sigh. Her fingers slide down from Jongdae's hair to his nape, and she finally wraps her arm around his waist. Jongdae instinctively scoots closer as Dahye snuggles up against his side. Her cheek feels warm but soft against his shoulder, and her breathing is quite calming. Jongdae focuses on the slow rhythm of her heartbeat as he watches the costume lying at their feet. It looks like a broken body on the carpeting, like it has been thrown there to mark the finding of a murder victim. The black hood is splattered over the floor in a dark puddle that could be thick blood, and it seems to be staring back at Jongdae. 

Dahye lets out another sigh as she straightens up. She lets go of Jongdae's waist, and grabs the cup of coffee he's still desperately holding on. She throws him a glance heavy with implied meanings, and walks to Jongdae's microwave. 

“Who's that guy anyway?” she asks as she presses a few buttons. Jongdae hears the appliance's waves tingle in his mind, like they always do. “And why would Lexie Wright send you to him?”

Jongdae shrugs helplessly. 

“Whoever he is, he's obviously after Thorne. There hasn't been any body drops on Beaulieu or Pavoni's sides, has it?”

Dahye shakes her head as the microwave rings. Jongdae replays Lexie and Baekhyun's exchanged look in his mind when Lexie gave him the location as Dahye walks back to him. She shoves the cup in his hands and throws him a severe look he completely misses, lost in his thoughts.

“Thorne is obviously the weakest out of the three mob leaders, being in the asylum and all,” he thinks out loud. “Maybe there's a new king wannabe in town. Taking down Thorne is probably a lot easier than Beaulieu or Pavoni at this point.”

Dahye frowns. 

“If he's after Thorne's territory, he could become a threat for Beaulieu and Pavoni, and that would explain why she sent you after him.” Dahye's thinking face clears for a half amused half jaded one. “Would that be surprising? Nope. The woman never gets her own hands dirty.”

Jongdae chuckles. Dahye has a point though, Lexie probably expects him to go after the hooded man, which is most surely what he'll do anyway. Someone that dangerous and deathly shouldn't be allowed to wander freely in the city, and bringing him in would take Jongdae a step closer to his goal – which is, and always will be, taking Thorne out of the picture 

“She may not have given me anything against Thorne, she didn't refute when I mentioned him either,” he tells Dahye, and she lets out a frustrated sigh. 

“Of course she didn't” she mumbles. She instinctively grabs Jongdae's wrist and lifts his arm to have him take a sip of his coffee. “Thorne _is_ behind those robberies, we know that. We're just lacking some serious proofs to bring him in once and for all.”

She looks into Jongdae's face, a moment of silence stretching between them. Jongdae can hear Dahye's heart speeds up ever so slightly, and he catches the familiar sparkle in her eyes. His own body reacts to her, and adrenaline burns through his veins as he lowers his cup of coffee again. 

“We should go talk to her again,” Dahye says, each one of her words revealing a bit more about the smile she's trying hard to restrain. “And make her give us some _useful_ answers.”

“You know how she works, Dahye. She won't give us more until I've returned the favour. Plus, it's different now, you're a cop. If you're seen mingling with Port Ville's mob...”

“I won't be,” Dahye hastily interrupts. Her smile widens. “Because I won't be going as Jang Dahye. I take care of Baekhyun, and you dig into Lexie's brain for our proofs against Thorne.”

“We're trying to prevent another gang war, not start one,” Jongdae chuckles. 

Dahye sighs, her lips falling into a light pout.

“So what now?” she asks. “What do we do?”

Jongdae blinks away, thinking. The top priority is making sure Thorne doesn't get out of the asylum. Once that risk cleared, they'll be able to focus on finding solid proofs against him. It inevitably makes the hooded man their priority, and maybe they'll even learn some useful things when they'll question him. Pictures of the man waving at him from the limo, or bowing down to him flash through his mind. He hasn't forgotten about the low chuckle in the cinema either, or how fast and scarily efficient he is, and something tells him that trying to stop him could be at least as complicated as finding evidence against Thorne. 

He breaks himself out of his reverie and looks back at Dahye, whose deep eyes have never left his face. The worried wrinkle crossing her forehead smooths itself out upon meeting Jongdae's gaze. She flashes him a light but understanding smile even though a dark bitter veil falls over her eyes. 

“So I guess we're going to protect Thorne's territory now,” she sighs. 

She reaches for Jondgae's cup of coffee and drinks a long sip. 

“ _I_ will,” Jongdae corrects her as she hands him back his cup. 

She throws him a nasty look, but freezes before Jongdae can say anything. He frowns at her wide eyes and the upward corners of her lips, confused. 

“Dahye?”

“You're right,” she says, excitement unfolding all over her face. She looks like she's just had a revelation which could be a very good – or a very bad thing. 

“Am I?” Jongdae says in a small hesitating voice. 

“I _am_ a cop.” She grins. “I know exactly what we have to do.”

 

 

Captain Do Insung hasn't come at the Police Station before five am in a very long time. Being at the top of the PVPD has its advantages – alas too few for the number of cons – and his long-time favourite has always been the absence of night shifts on his work schedule. Being a cop in Port Ville is hard enough, but being a cop during the night in Port Ville is almost suicidal, and he sure doesn't miss the lingering tension, the lurking threat. How are there still young people signing up to the police academy is a mystery to him, but Do Insung has long stopped trying to make a sense of this God-forsaken city.

Although this is exactly what is expected from him right now. 

He greets the few policemen left in the station on his way to his office, the lack of sleep still heavy on his face. This case has every cons possible and absolutely zero advantage, because here he is, entering his office at the ungodly hour of four and fifty in the _morning_. Another attempt at robbery, six bodies, an old rumour coming back to life, and he's the one supposed to clean the mess. 

Do Insung freezes, his fingers hovering over the switch of his office, the wooden door closing behind him. His eyes fall on the dark silhouette standing next to the window, and he feels even more aware of the tiredness gnawing his muscles. He lets out a sigh as his arm falls back against his hip. His wrist knocks against the familiar shape of his gun hanging on his belt, but he doesn't even try to draw it out. 

“Oh that can't be a good sign” he says with a hint of bitterness in his voice. 

The silhouette looks up at him, and even though the sun is merely just a hint of light on the horizon line, Do Insung manages to make out the outline of a black mask he'd never thought he'll see again. He glances over his shoulder and locks his door before making his way to the desk. Wrapped in his cape, the man follows him with his eyes, still and silent. 

“I have men all over the city looking for you,” Insung says once he's sat at his desk. The chair creaks as he spins on it to face Alpha. He links his fingers over his abdomen. 

“I hope they're also looking for the man who killed those thieves,” Alpha says. 

It's the same voice. Of course, it is. He was there for the memorial service the mayor threw for Alpha when it became clear the latter wouldn't come back, and he even said a few words. As he was honouring Alpha's five years of loyal and honest service, he never really believed Port Ville's superhero was dead though. Retired and finally realizing leaving Port Ville would be healthier maybe, but not dead. Obviously, he was right. Not about the leaving part though, but that is Alpha's problem, not his. 

“I have witnesses telling you were after one man only. Did he kill them all on his own?”

Alpha nods slowly, and Insung sighs. It's going to be a very long day. 

“You should be careful,” Alpha tells him, his voice tense. “Your men shouldn't engage if they see him. I've seen him fight, and he's stronger, faster than any of you could be.”

“Amazing, we have a super villain in town” Insung deadpans. As though they didn't have enough on their plate with that new drug ravaging the Bottoms. 

He looks back at Alpha, who remains quiet and motionless, but Insung has been there too many times before to take that for the end of their talk. They rarely worked in team, even back when Alpha had no partners on his own, but when they did, Insung was always sure to find the superhero in his office, with obviously much more data than what he was willing to give away for the PVPD. The past five years blur in Insung's mind. It's like they didn't even happen. 

“What do you know about him?” he questions. 

“We – I think he's after Thorne.”

Insung doesn't answer at first. He looks into the little he can see of Alpha's face – black eyes, thin lips and an angular jawline – and he sighs. 

“Thorne is locked up.” 

“And you're one hundred percent positive he can't harm anyone anymore?”

“Sure I am,” Insung snaps. “Look, we're all pretty busy here, so what don't you tell me why you're here?”

Alpha considers him for a couple of seconds, but Insung keeps a straight face. No matter what capacities the guy has, he's still a civilian, which means that Insung would never go on and on about police work with him. He literally doesn't have the time to deal with rumours right now, not when they have a dangerous killer on the run, and ninety-nine other problems that should have been taken care of two weeks ago. It’s too early anyway and he’s not in the mood.

Alpha doesn’t look away, he doesn’t even blink. Insung lets out a deep sigh. Night shifts or not, being a detective was much nicer. 

“Okay,” he gives in. “What do you have on that mysterious killer guy?”

“My guess is, he's been hired by someone new and very intent on sitting amongst the biggest of Port Ville's mob, so he's attacking the weakest of the three kings. Which is obviously Thorne.” He raises his hand to nip Insung's protestation in the bud. “Don't believe me if you don’t want to, but you can't argue with me here. He's obviously after one guy only, and that is the person leading the Invisible Burglars.”

Insung makes a face. 

“I hate that stupid name,” he mumbles. 

He thinks he sees Alpha flashing a quick smile that he has the decency to quickly erase before he continues.

“We both have no idea who's behind those robberies, and between the two of you, I'm the only one who might have something.”

“Yeah, but that something is Thorne.”

“Commissioner, please,” Alpha sighs. 

His gloved hand is still raised mid-air, and Insung is reminded of the power sleeping in those fingers. Port Ville's beloved son has never used his powers on him – or if he did he made sure Insung couldn't remember which is still a good point for him – and that is probably half of the reason why Insung trust, or at least, _respect_ him. He sighs and gestures at Alpha to continue. 

“I want you to help me watch over Thorne's stashes.” He doesn't react to Insung's mumbled _they're not Thorne's anymore_ , and instead keeps going. “Where his men still operate, where he hides his money, all those places. I want to catch that guy, which means I have to be there when he'll attack Thorne again.”

Insung's eyes trail from Alpha's face to the window behind him. The sky is getting lighter with every minute passing by, and with the hints of orange and pink painting the horizon, Alpha's silhouette becomes clearer. He's wearing the same large cape he’s always worn, the same large hood pulled over his head and which seems to never slip off of him. It's the same mask staring at Insung, and even the same shadow stretching over his features. It's as though he's never disappeared, but he did. He did, for five long years, right after he helped them catch the Bomber. 

“Listen, I have no idea what Thorne did to you, but it's over now. You can go back to whatever you were doing, kid. Leave that mess behind.”

He feels the air thicken with tension, but he holds Alpha’s eyes, determined.

“I have unfinished business,” the man says, his voice more of a whisper, and Insung feels the heaviness of his words deep inside of him. He sighs and straightens against the back of his chair. 

“Let's say you're right, what you're asking still is impossible. I don't have enough men. We already have to deal with this drug issue in the Bottoms. I can't afford to lose men over a mere possibility.”

“What if they volunteer?” Alpha immediately counters, and Insung can't help but feel like he's been played and ended up saying exactly what Alpha wanted him to say. “What if they offer to take more shifts for that mission only?”

Insung snorts. All in all, it's a beautiful idea, but he can't see anyone who would do that. Be in stake out means night shifts, after all. 

“You've been gone for too long. I think you forgot what happened to altruism in this city.”

Alpha takes a first step towards him, thus reducing the distance between them for the first time.

“But would you say yes?” Alpha insists. “If some were to accept, would you let them?”

Insung swallows nervously. There are still a couple of feet between him and Alpha, but he feels like the latter has him pinned down on his chair. He has to mentally shake himself to remember that he's the one in charge and that he could have Alpha arrested in the blink of an eye if he wanted to. Somehow, it doesn't bring back his confidence. 

“Good luck with that,” he manages to croak. He makes out a faint smile on Alpha's lips, and he feels himself relax a bit. “But don't go around forcing my guys,” he says in a much more assured voice, his intonations stronger and lower than what they usually are. He clears his throat, a bit embarrassed at his need to take back control over the situation, and pretends to turn back to his desk, his heart beating loudly in his chest. (Damn, can the boy hear it?)

“You don't want us to be enemies,” he mumbles. “I want those officers to tell me loud and clear that it's what they want, okay?” He pauses as he rearranges his desk to hide his nervousness. “Are we clear?”

There are no answers. When Insung turns around, he is blinded by a particularly fierce ray of sunshine hitting his window right where there was a cloaked silhouette barely minutes ago. Frowning, Insung stands up and takes a first step towards said window, but he freezes. He already has the very unpleasant feeling that he's been played, and it's not even six am yet, so his ego begs him not to start dancing that very old dance Alpha has always lead. He lets out a long sigh that empties his lungs and checks his watch. The hands are taunting, evil, and Insung sighs again, for good measure.

It _is_ going to be a very long day, he thinks, as he steps out of his office and starts screaming orders at whoever is unlucky enough to be there. It probably won't be the day he'll get to go fishing with Kyungsoo. 

 

Port Ville slowly wakes up at Jongdae's feet, street lights turning off, windows suddenly lighting up. It's a sight he's seen countless of times before, when he used to wander through the city by night and forget how lively and beautiful it can look by day because of a messy sleep schedule, but he never got used to it. Right now though, he doesn't let the city take his breath away: his eyes are focused on a piece of paper he's holding between gloved fingers. Dahye's voice rings in his head – _I know who would gladly accept_ – clashing with Do Insung's words – _I think you forgot what happened to altruism in this city_. The latter has been a cop for too many years, and the ones he spent with the title of Commissioner weighing on his shoulders have finally ruined his trust, but Dahye, Dahye is still young, still hopeful. And she had no hint of doubt in her eyes when she wrote down those names. 

Dawn has always been such a pretty sight in Port Ville, probably Jongdae's favourite moment of the day. Today he won't get to admire it though, for he has work to do. He smiles as he shoves the paper in his pocket, his mind already reaching for the first name. 

Pyo Jihoon.

 

 

Dahye's little schemes pay dividends. They find themselves, a few hours later, watching a wobbly-looking building as the night stretches out around them. Officially, Thorne's old stashes have been taken by other gangs, for other illegal activities such as free fights and things that aren't considered a priority for the PVPD. Dahye's black board has hints about each one of them still being linked to Thorne though, which makes them all possible targets for the hooded man.

“And he was just standing there, on my doormat.” Jihoon's voice trails off with a little sigh, one that makes it so obvious that he's grinning hard. His huge smile can be heard even through the radio crackling in Dahye's car. “Alpha just knocked on my door at five thirty in the morning and politely asked for my help.” Jihoon chuckles. “I mean, the guy's a superstar. He's a superhero. I thought he was like, always using windows as doors and never paying any visit to people like _me_.”

Jongdae glances at Dahye and she welcomes his gaze with a lopsided smile. When she showed up to work earlier, she went straight to Do's office to tell him how Alpha had made an offer to her, and she pretended to be surprised to find six other officers there, all of them with the same story to tell. Of course, Do Insung wasn't pleased, but he was also bound by his words which led him to put Dahye -the oldest officer out of all seven of them – in charge of this new team, and beg of her to keep silent about PVPD's new collaboration with newly returned superhero Alpha. Jongdae wasn't surprised to learn that Dahye's plan had worked to perfection. 

“Doors as windows,” someone else snorts through the radio. This time, it's a female voice, soft but deep and consequently calmer and more clear-cut than Jihoon's overexcited one. “He's bound by laws too; he can't just break into someone's apartment like that.”

Dahye chuckles behind her wheel, dimples pressing into her skin. They've been in stake-out for the past three hours, but with her radio turned on, and the six other cops' voices filling the vehicle, Jongdae hasn't felt bored a single time. They've been bantering and keeping every possible second of silence at bay, their voices wandering between professional and private talks. It makes their lack of experience obvious, but neither Dahye nor Jongdae mind. If anything, it feels refreshing, and it even allowed Jongdae to grow more familiar with the six young cops Dahye chose, although the past thirty minutes Jihoon spent blabbering about Alpha weren't the most comfortable ones. Dahye definitely looks like she enjoys the irony though, her eyes turning into moon crescents and throwing silent _if they knew Alpha himself was listening to them right now_ at Jongdae.

“Well, if he did he wouldn't be Alpha anyway,” another woman says. Jongdae recognizes the hint of huskiness lurking behind the intonations. This is Ahn Hyejin, the youngest. Dahye teamed her with Kang Seulgi, who happens to be the only other detective of the team, although she was promoted less than a month ago.

“But it _was_ him, right? I mean, it was the same guy under the hood and not some wannabe dude,” Lee Jooheon asks, his voice low and crackling through the radio. His question brings a brief second of silence that has Dahye raising her eyebrows at Jongdae, her smiling face mimicking mystery and suspense. Jongdae clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes, but he can't help his lips form curling up. 

“Of course it was him!” Jihoon answers vehemently. “I'd bet my life on it.”

Jung Soojung deeply sighs in the background, the sudden rush of air emptying her lungs letting loose to a static storm in their radios. 

“My God, he loves you so much,” Dahye cheekily says to Jongdae which earns her a playful hit on the shoulder from the latter. 

“What about you, boss?” Kim Namjoon asks hurriedly, before Soojung and Jihoon, who share the same car on the other side of the City – Port Ville's business block – start fighting again. “How did Alpha ask you to join him in this nonsense?”

Dahye grabs her radio, her mischievous eyes and her wide grin making Jongdae frown. 

“Don't say anything stupid” he warms her in a whisper although she hasn't pressed the button yet. 

She winks at him, and he glares at her before reaching out to try and grab her talkie. She keeps him on his seat with a stretched out arm, her palm pressing on his chest as she brings the device to her lips. 

“Me?” she says. Jongdae winces at how giggly her voice sounds. “I was sleeping, but when I opened my eyes, he was in the corner of my bedroom, and he was watching me. Probably waiting for me to wake up.”

She lets go of the radio just as Jongdae wades in with a muffle scream of protest. He immediately goes for her side, pressing his fingertips everywhere he knows her to be particularly sensitive. She erupts in laughter as she tries to dodge his attacks by squishing against her car door just as Hyejin's voice fills the vehicle with a disgusted groan. 

“Don't tell me he's a creep,” she moans. 

“He's not!” Jihoon snaps, then squeaks as Soojung most probably pinches him. 

“Relax, kiddo,” Seulgi – who is actually _younger_ than him – butts in. “She was probably kidding.” 

“Of course you were,” Jondgae groans from where he's tangled with Dahye. She's hiccupping against him, her breathing raged from all the laughing, and her legs somehow where Jongdae's should be. His left one is under her, the right one dangling from her right arm. His fingers are deep under her shirt though, nails ready to aggressively tingle again, which definitely makes him the winner of their fight. Dahye gives in with a breathy chuckle and reaches for the talkie again. She groans when Jongdae tries to bite her hand as her fingers fly before his face. 

“Okay, you win,” she whines. “Stop trying to bite me!” She hits him lightly on the cheek and Jongdae lets go with a pleased smile. She pushes his body away as she untangles herself from him. 

“Boss?” Namjoon asks again, unsure. 

“I'm here,” Dahye finally answers through the radio. Jongdae smiles at her as he straightens up on the seat and makes sure his hood is still up. Sitting in another cop's car isn't the most cautious behaviour, but it was Dahye's terms: if she couldn't wear her costume she still wanted to take part to whatever could happen. 

“You all can call me Dahye though,” she continues. “And I _was_ joking. It happened the same for me than it did for you, guys. He knocked on my door, told me he thought someone was after Thorne and that it could provoke a new gang war and asked me if I wanted to help him. And I said yes. The rest is history.”

Jihoon doesn't even tries to hide the nervous chuckle he lets out, and it makes Jongdae smile slightly. He was sixteen when he started the whole Alpha thing, and back then, it was half a desire to do good and half excitement. He didn't even think when he created his second identity, it just seemed like the right thing to do, at least according to the numerous comics and movies going at length about it. It didn't take him too long to realize that the hood and the mask had become a symbol amongst the people of Port Ville though, and then, it wasn't about him anymore. It was about this symbol being a good thing – and _remaining_ a good thing for those who needed it. 

“I'm kind of sad Heize wasn't the one who contacted me,” Hyejin says. “I loved her. She's the reason why purple is my favourite colour.”

Dahye's eyes open wide and she proudly beams at her radio. Jongdae catches her fingers curling towards the talkie, as though she was hitching to grab the device and reveal her biggest secret to her colleagues. 

“Oh my god,” Jooheon intervenes. “Heize was _so_ badass. And you know who else was? That Nightblade guy. Damn.”

“Nightblade was my favourite,” Namjoon says. 

His words are followed by another of Soojung's famous snort, and a muffled _boys_. Dahye and Jongdae exchange a glance. Jongdae watches the flash of emotion go through her eyes, and it takes him everything he has to reach for her hand. Her fingers curl around his, and she smiles softly at him. 

“Where do you think they are now?” Seulgi asks. “I mean, if Alpha's asking for our help, does it mean he doesn't have a team anymore?”

“I don't know,” Soojung answers. “Maybe Nightblade and Heize got married, who cares. Maybe they just decided to drop it and go to the Bahamas or whatever. Port Ville is a lost cause anyway.”

Her words harshly come out of the radio, and they bring with them a sharp silence. Jongdae feels it dripping from the device, thicker with every second passing by, heavier. Soojung implied it more than she actually said it, but she probably just worded what they were all thinking. Jongdae glances at Dahye, whose eyes are already on him, and whose fingers tighten around his. 

“They think you're dead,” Jongdae whispers, and she nods with a light smile. 

“If only they knew,” she says, using the same tone as him. 

They're partially right, Jongdae muses. He doesn't have a team anymore, because he doesn't want one. Because he's not back. That symbol that made Port Ville stand up to the darkness years ago is gone, and Jongdae can’t endorse it again. He hasn't much hope left for himself, after all. 

“I hope they'll come back,” Hyejin says, in a much lower voice than before. “They're the reason I became a cop.” 

“Likewise,” Jihoon whispers. 

Jongdae feels his throat constrict, and something heavy leaving his body through his pores. All in all, it hurts, like he's been torn inside out, but the pain is also freeing, healing. Dahye lets out a shaky breath next to him, and he glances at her, at her light smile and deep eyes. In the darkness pressing against her car windows, the hazel hint of her irises has dropped to a darker colour, and Jongdae is currently staring at it, marvelling at how bright it glistens. 

“We inspired them,” she whispers. “Sehun inspired them.”

Jongdae refrains a snort. If they knew what happened to their inspiration. He blew away in a warehouse. Sehun was flesh and bones, he was all flaws and perfection, and then he was burning alive, blowing to pieces. Just like Jongdae, Sehun isn't much of the symbol he used to be. The thought draws a smile from Jongdae. He still can picture the playful smirk Sehun would flash him, just like he can hear his low voice chuckling as he'd shrug it out - _hey at least we're doing this together._. 

Jongdae can't help his smile from widening a bit. Dahye's fingers leave his only to slide up his palm and go straight under his leather sleeve where they press against his skin. The softness of her touch breaks Jongdae out of his reverie, and he looks back at her, smiling a bit wider when he catches her own curled up lips. 

“Something's happening,” Jooheon's voice suddenly cracks in the radio. Jongdae immediately tenses at his seriousness. “Two trucks just came out of the warehouse.”

“They look armoured,” Namjoon immediately adds. 

Jongdae watches Dahye as she frowns and lets go of his arm. 

“This is new,” she tells Jongdae while her hand curls on the talkie. 

Jongdae stops her hand, adrenaline flooding his body. He feels his senses grow more sensitive as his heart speeds up in his chest. He was right all along. 

“It's a bait,” he says. “It's too obvious. They're trying to lure the hooded guy.”

He hears Dahye's heart speeds up in her chest. He lets her go and turns around gets out of the car. He's already in the street when he catches her voice coming out in harsh intonations through the radio waves behind him. 

“Do not engage,” she says, her detective voice on full display. “Namjoon, Jooheon, I repeat, do not engage, it's a trap. Follow them but stay covered. Where are the trucks heading?

Jongdae zooms out of the conversation as he runs into an alley. He winces at the foul smell engulfing him, but doesn't let it slow him down. His legs tense, and he hops on the closest dumpster, the plastic lid slightly bending under his weight, then he reaches up to the fire escape stairs. His senses are now on full alert, and he makes out dozens of conversations, dozens of different smells and sounds. His powers do come in handy, but they also require a lot of focus that Jongdae can easily lose. This time though, he keeps his eyes on the sky above him, and his thoughts on the adrenaline running through his muscles. He climbs the fire escape, jumping from one rail to the other. 

Dahye's voice is still cracking in the back of his mind when he hauls himself on the roof. He shoves a finger in his ear to make sure his earpiece is still there, and he dashes off towards the edge of the roof. 

“Talk to me, Dahye,” he says between two breaths. 

Dahye's voice fills his ear just as he jumps on another roof. 

“They're circling the block.”

“Waiting for the hood to show up,” Jongdae mumbles as he tenses his muscles again and jumps over another alley. 

Namjoon and Jooheon were the nearest team, which is a good thing, but the warehouse they were watching happens to be dangerously close to a very lively neighbourhood. There's probably nothing in those trucks, nothing that the hooded guy could steal anyway, but Jongdae doesn't doubt that Thorne's men are heavily armed, and impatiently waiting for their target. They don't care about casualties, nor does the hooded guy, so Jongdae has to stop them before they reach the bars and the pedestrian streets. And he has to do it before it can be used against him again, like the hooded guy did when they last met. 

“Jongdae, I sent Hyejin and Seulgi to the closest bars” Dahye's voice crackles in his ear. “Jihoon and Soojung are on their way too, but they were near the airport so it's gonna take a while.” 

Jongdae doesn't bother answering, and he knows Dahye isn't waiting for an answer anyway. If everything happens like they both have carefully planned, this whole mess could stop tonight, and Jongdae could go on living his life as though nothing happened. Two trucks popping out of an old Thorne stash won't probably be enough for Do Insung, especially since it has become a sort of rallying point for illegal race participants the last couple of years, but it is for Jongdae. No matter how Thorne makes money now, it's still him, and once that hooded dude will be out of the picture, Jongdae will be able to focus on Thorne. Those two trucks were a mistake. He's making it easier for Jongdae. Everything could be over so soon. 

Jongdae comes to a halt with a slide after jumping on an umpteenth building. His breath comes out in short and erratic pants, and his muscles burn under the leather, but all in all, he feels alive, he feels powerful. Cars are driving all around him, he catches angry honks, playful chats and hundreds of soles hitting the concrete. 

“Dahye, I'm here,” he says as he steps closer to the edge of the building to check the streets under him. 

It's one of the oldest blocks in Port Ville, and the buildings aren't as high as in the City, but it's still high enough for Jongdae to look for the two trucks. He crouches down on the low wall, a hand hovering the stone for balance as he scans the surroundings. The heat left by the cloudless sky is still lurking up there, crawling out of the concrete in invisible waves. Jongdae's nape itches under the hood. 

“Apparently the trucks are still circling the block,” Dahye answers. “Do you see them?”

“Not yet,” Jongdae answers. His eyes travel to the corner of the street. It's too noisy for him to be able to make out the roaring engines he's after, but if Dahye's colleagues are right, then the trucks should pop out of there. 

“Still no trace of -”

The end of Dahye's voice drowns in the back of Jongdae's mind as a hissing sound fills his ears. His heart jumps up in his throat as he looks up just in time to see the blade flying towards him. He dodges it, but his mind remains focused on it. When it hits the roof door behind him, he feels the vibrations in his whole body, and his muscles tense at how strong the impact was. Jongdae immediately turns around, squinting at the darkness around him until he catches a black silhouette standing on the roof across the street. His vision flashes red when the hooded man waves at him. 

“Jongdae?” Dahye asks. 

“He's here,” he groans. “I'm looking at him right now. He took the bait.”

“Be careful,” she says, her voice a bit lower than usually. 

Jongdae leans over the void beneath him and gauges the width of the street and how much time it would take him to climb to the opposite roof. He could do it in less than thirty seconds, but considering how fast his enemy proved to be before, it wouldn't be of any use. Locking his jaws, Jongdae glances at him, and he silently fulminates upon seeing him sitting on the edge of the roof, his legs dangling in the void. The nonchalance he's wearing in thick layers infuriates Jongdae, but it also leaves a bitter taste on the back of his tongue. He shouldn't be so calm, he shouldn't act like everything was planned, like he was expecting Jongdae and the poor attempt of an ambush from Thorne. Jongdae gulps as he glances at the street one more time, his eyes unwillingly stopping on the numerous heads beneath. 

“Dahye, there are so many people here,” he whispers. 

She answers in waves of statics that Jongdae's mind can't make any sense of, because at the exact same time, a low chuckle reaches his ears. He freezes and looks back towards the hooded man. Jongdae should be able to make out his features, but his face remains in the shadow thrown by his large hood and the black mask he's wearing on the lower half of his face. Black strands of hair hide the other half, but as the light breeze of Port Ville's rooftops ruffle through them, Jongdae manages to catch the outline of a crescent shaped eye. The hooded man is smiling at him.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Jongdae mumbles, squinting at the figure across the street. 

Dahye says something, but once again, Jongdae doesn't pay attention. He leans in, his fingers curling on the edge of the roof, and he gathers his senses, every hint of power he owns, to throw them at the man. He blocks the traffic noise, the chattering, the breeze, everything, until he feels himself reaching the hooded man. His heart slows down in his chest, and everything disappears until only the hood and that almost complete eye are the only things left. And then Jongdae hears it. Amplified and slow, regular, the hooded man's heartbeat thrums against his eardrums. His pants rub against the concrete as he dangles his legs in the void beneath him. There's a faint wet sound that Jongdae recognizes as the sliding of lips against teeth as they draw up a smile. He can't help but feel like his enemy is aware of the intense examination he's undergoing, but if anything, he looks amused by it. He tilts his head, and Jongdae's ears fill with the sound of the hood rubbing against the man's hair, and his eyes immediately zoom on the brief apparition of the outer corner of an eye. It's fleeting, but it burns Jongdae's retinas. It's sharp, curled up, mapped with laughing wrinkles, but it doesn't feel as cold and dangerous as it should. Without realizing, Jongdae leans closer and closer, his c ape flapping in the air. 

“JONGDAE!”

Dahye's roaring voice startles him, and he almost topples off the edge. His heart jumps into his throat as he clenches his hands on the concrete, and he winces at the feeling of burn in his arms. 

“What?”

“The trucks! They're here!” 

Her voice is angry, cutting, and Jongdae only then realizes that she must have been talking to him for several seconds already. When he glances at the hooded figure, the latter is up on his feet, his gaze away from Jongdae, and Jongdae can't hear neither his heartbeat nor his breathing in the ruckus around him. It almost confuses him, the quantity of noises and colours, but when he looks down and catches the trucks engaging in the street beneath him, his focus forces back its way to his mind. 

“Okay I'm gonna focus on – _fuck!_ ”

The hooded man has already jumped off the roof, with no string whatsoever, his arms opened like wings on each side of his body. Jongdae groans as he jumps on his feet and starts running on the low wall, his eyes still attached to the trucks. The man lands smoothly on the second one, with no apparent wounds – which Jongdae wasn't counting on anyway – and he crouches down as he shoves a hand in his pocket. He pulls out something that catches the green light of the Irish pub sign the truck is driving by, but Jongdae doesn't manage to make out what it is exactly. It's only when the man sticks it on the truck and hurriedly crawls away that he realises. 

He feels the blow from where he is, the vibrations hitting his body in violent waves, and he almost loses his balance. The explosion whistles in his ears long after it's over, and the sudden rush of burning air which flies up brushes past him. It's not as bad as it feels, fortunately, and when Jongdae glances down, he sees that only the back of the truck has been blown away. The driver hasn't even stopped, and what's left of the trailer is now opened on several armed men who look pretty pissed. A police siren tears apart the rumbling panic taking over the street, and Jongdae winces upon catching Jooheon and Namjoon's car, thrown at full speed behind the trucks.

Jongdae bites his lips. He glances at the edge of the roof ahead of him then back at the trucks on his right. 

“Jongdae!” Dahye groans in his ear. 

“I know!” 

He finally reaches the edge of the roof, but he doesn't slow down. Carried away by his momentum, he aims at the opposite roof and lets himself fall past the edge. His body hits the hard wall, and he uses the contact as a support to propel himself backwards. The alley beneath him is barely as wide as a car, which makes Jongdae's jumps from one facade to the other extremely easy, and fast enough so that when he finally lands on the ground, the trucks haven't driven past the alley yet. He doesn't waste any precious second sighing with relief – although relief definitely washes over him – and immediately dashes off towards the street. Guns start shooting, closer with every second passing by, and people start screaming. The police siren is ear-splitting, but it's also invasive and powerful enough to drown everything else out. Jongdae focuses on it as it crashes against surfaces, cars and bodies, and he draws an image of the scene in his mind. His timing needs to be perfect. 

He jumps on the parked car outside of the alley, and the alarm goes off. It jolts him out of his focus, and the chaos around him swoops down on him, but it's too late to analyse his surroundings again. His body goes taut, and he leaps. 

He sees the scene in slow motion, how his hands clenches on thin air as the first truck drives past him a few feet ahead, and how hard and dangerous and _lethal_ the concrete is. Then it disappears, engulfed by the second truck's huge tyres, and the world comes back to its usual speed. Jongdae crashes against the driver's door, his hand closing on the wing mirror. He hears his cape brushing against the concrete, and he gulps, heart thumping against his temples. 

“What the fuck?!” the driver exclaims. 

Jongdae dodges the first bullet the driver's partner shoots at him, but the window shattering almost makes him lose his balance. His left foot slides off the metal step on the side of the truck, and he winces as the wing mirror becomes his only support for a fleeting second. The metal cracks and bends under his fingers, but Jongdae holds tighter and finally manages to stand on the step again. He lets go of the mirror and grabs the edge of the window. The few shards of glass still there tear his skin apart, and the wounds heal almost right away, only to reopen when Jongdae shoves his right arm inside the truck. His hand closes on the driver's shoulder, and a feeling of ecstasy runs through his body. It's a short-lived victory though, because he then blinks up to meet the cold iris of the driver's partner's gun. 

Jongdae presses himself against the side of the truck, but the speed has him hitting the cold surface harder than what he planned. He groans as his arm cracks under the unusual angle but at least his fingers are still clenched on the driver's shirt. Jongdae closes his eyes, forcing himself to forget the howling wind and the guns shooting at the back of the truck only to focus on the physical contact between his hand and the driver. When he feels like his whole being is hovering that specific spot, he lashes out every inch of power thrumming through his body, the small, but efficient electrical storm shooting through the driver's mind. And then Jongdae lets go. 

The speed has him falling off the step before throwing him against the trailer. He grabs the edge of it and pushes as hard as he can to slide himself in the few inches between the truck's cabin and the trailer. He lands on his knees, his breath coming out in short erratic puffs, and his eyes open wide. He gulps and glances at his broken arm. He can already feel the bones mend, cells slowly sewing themselves together, and he lets out a shaky sigh. In the cabin behind him, he can hear the two men struggle and groan as they throw punches. 

“Dahye,” he says as he feels his arm with the tip of his fingers. “I got the driver. He's gonna take the first on the right and take us to this huge construction site. It should be empty.”

“Okay. The other truck will probably turn around so be careful.” 

A muffled moan and a low thump in the cabin tell Jongdae the driver already did half of his job, which means one gun down. Considering the storm of gun fire raging on at the back of the truck, it's probably not much, but at least no one will try to stop the driver now. Jongdae closes his fist and bends his arm, on the lookout for the tiniest hint of pain, but his articulations run smoothly and he doesn't seem to be suffering from any loss of mobility. His heartbeat has also slowed down, and his senses are slowly coming back to a less hectic state. Which means he now can hear very distinctly every gasp, every bullet, every moan. 

Jongdae jumps back on his feet just as the truck turns right. His feet slide on the dirty platform but he hops and grabs the edge of the trailer before he gets ejected of the vehicle. He hauls himself on the trailer then crouches down against the cold surface to take in the situation. The back of the trailer has been severely damaged by the blow, and the edges are jagged and sharp. The hooded man is nowhere in sight, but there are fighting sound _inside_ the trailer. Jongdae grabs the first blade on his belt and hurries to the end of the trailer still crouched down, his other palm hovering the metallic surface just in case. A bullet tears apart the material inches from his finger, and Jongdae jumps back just in time. He watches it in slow motion as it shots through the air right where his chin was not even a second before. 

“Alpha, Alpha! _ALPHA!_ ”

Jongdae looks up, surprised, and sees Namjoon and Jooheon's car still tailing the truck. He notices with a peak of worry the numerous holes on the car body but the two officers don't look wounded. They're both frantically waving, even Jooheon who only has one hand on the wheel. Jongdae grabs the ripped edge of the trailer, frowning as Namjoon repeatedly points his index finger at the trailer, his eyes wide opened. 

“You can talk to him, idiot!” Jooheon screams next to him, his voice at least two octaves higher than usual. “He can hear us!”

Namjoon gasps in realization. He brings his hands to his mouth. 

“HE'S GONNA KILL HIM HURRY!”

Jongdae's head snaps toward the trailer beneath him, and another burning shot of adrenaline has his body going taut. He closes his fingers tighter on the edge, not minding the shards digging through his glove and lets himself falls forward. He swings straight into the trailer. 

Another gun shoots just as he lands on a still body. He looks up just in time to see another man fall to the ground, at the feet of the hooded man who stands tall and unfazed by Jongdae's appearance. His right hand is closed on a steaming gun and his head slightly tilted as he takes in Jongdae. He raises his left hand and stretches his fingers. Jongdae hears his knuckles crack. 

He slowly gets back on his feet, his eyes still carefully attached to the hooded man. The trailer's floor is paved with bodies, and the ferrous smell of blood is heavy on the back of his tongue. They were paid to kill him, and judging by the number of weapons he can see lying around, they didn't underestimate the threat, but it wasn't nearly enough. How many were they? Jongdae throws a quick glance around them. And the hooded man doesn't even look wounded. 

“You knew it was a trap,” he says as he draws back his eyes on the leather-covered figure. “So why did you come?”

The man doesn't say anything – of course he doesn't. Instead, he just keeps staring at Jongdae, his breath slow and regular, his heartbeat controlled. Jongdae tries again and again to see through the hood, to guess the features under the mask and to solve the puzzle, but his eyes only catch darkness and black, leather and complete stillness. Frustrated, he takes a small step toward the man without even realizing, and it breaks the connection. The hooded man raises his arm again, and presses the trigger without an ounce of hesitation.

Jongdae spins to dodge the bullet, but he's a heartbeat too late and it rips through the fabric on his thigh. The sting is burning, seizing, but not nearly as much as the rush of fear when he realizes it has also touched the front right tire of Jooheon's car. Jongdae loses his balance with a gasp, the burn on his thigh growing as he falls on all four, and his heart thumping against his ribcage. He watches, powerless, as Jooheon loses the control of his car and drives off the road. The car crashes against a street lamp with a roar of sheet of metal bending. Jongdae leans closer to the edge of the trailer. The truck is already driving away, and the engine is too loud, Port Ville is too loud, and Jondgae can't hear anything, no heartbeat, no voice, nothing, and-

He gasps as a strong hand closes on his neck and he immediately throws his elbow backwards. It crashes against a sharp hipbone, and the hooded man moans, pushed back by the violence of the collision. Jongdae jumps back on his feet and throws his blade before dashing off towards the man who, as expected, dodges his weapon. He doesn't manage to avoid Jongdae though, and the latter crashes against him. He grabs his shoulders and knees him in the crotch before punching him, his knuckles crashing against the man's temple. The latter falls to the side, but he manages to kick Jongdae on the side of his knee as he does so. Jongdae's ears thrum with the sound of his bone breaking, and he moans as he falls down on his knees. 

“Hey!” Dahye screams in his ear, and Jongdae knows she's heard him. He also knows she's not using his name any more in case the man can hear her. “Are you okay?”

Jongdae winces as he cups his knee. He pretends it has already healed as he gets back on his feet with much difficulty, his body reeling. He groans but lets go to take another blade on his belt. He's too late though, and this time, it's the hooded man who crashes against him. He pushes Jongdae against the side of the trailer with so much strength that Jongdae is sure he felt the metal bend around his body. He lets out a husky moan when his opponent swoops down on him and closes his hand around his neck.

“Fuck,” Dahye's voice cracks in his ear. “I'm on my way.”

The hooded man towers over Jongdae, his fingers digging into the soft skin of Jongdae's neck, but although his hold is definitely stronger than the one of a human, it is definitely not strong enough to choke Jongdae. It successfully stops him from avoiding the man's elbow before it crashes on his jaw, but Jongdae didn't even try to dodge it. His whole being is focused on the warmth radiating from the man's hand, and soon enough, he feels himself slip out of his own body. The energy prickles on the inside of his veins as it shoots towards the hand. He can feel this other mind, so close to his, but foreign and still distant, and he pushes harder on his power.

The man suddenly lets go. Jongdae catches a hint of fear just before his conscience is sucked back into his head.

“Stay the fuck out of this,” the man threatens. He speaks in a low husky voice that he's obviously disguising himself. 

Jongdae glares at him and steps on the man's foot. He gathers all his strength in his sole and presses it on the man's toes as hard as he can. Once again, he hears bones breaking, and once again the man hits him. Blood and pain fill his mouth as his face crashes against the wall, and before he knows it, his enemy shoves his fingers in his ear and tears the earpiece off. Jongdae grabs his wrist, intent on keeping the contact long enough this time, and throws his other fist at the man's face. His power roars as it rushes down his arm, straight to the man's wrist, and the latter lets out a desperate yelp. He shoves Jongdae away and uses the surprise to break free. Jongdae readies himself to jump back onto his prey, but the hooded man is faster. His shoulder crashes against Jongdae's chest with so much force that it knocks the air out of his lungs, and the man's momentum is more than enough to have Jongdae fall off the trailer.

The fall is short, not nearly long enough for Jongdae to gasp in fear at the idea of his body hitting the concrete, but just as long for him to be surprised at the hollow sound his body makes when it lands on a car hood. He whirls around to grab the edge of the hood, and finds himself face to face with a dumbfounded Jihoon holding tightly to his wheel and a just as stunned-looking Soojung.

“Oh my god!” Jihoon exclaims in a high-pitched voice. “I did it, I saved Alpha, oh my god!”

In other circumstances, Jongdae would have definitely laughed at the look on their faces, but the speed roaring in his ears and the very serious threat of the hooded man both make the chuckling much harder to let out. He can't believe the man threw him away as easily as he was nothing more than a puppet, but it at least gave him a few precious seconds to allow his body to recover from their violent encounter. Jongdae still can taste the blood in his mouth though, but instead of pain and fear choking him, it's a burning rush of anger that seizes his heart. Determined, he slides up the car hood and hauls himself up on the roof. One glance tells him the hooded man is now climbing on the trailer's roof. 

Jongdae grabs the edge of the roof of the car for support and he slides closer to the edge to take a peek at Jihoon through his window. The latter jumps in his seat when Jongdae knocks on the window, and the car dangerously sways, threatening to throw Jongdae off. It at least brings Soojung to her senses, and she curses loudly. 

“I swear if you get us killed -” she begins. 

“Wait!” Jihoon shrieks. He looks completely overrun, but despite his lack of control, Jongdae doesn't spot any trace of fear in his eyes. “Alpha wants to talk to me!”

Jihoon presses on the button with shaky fingers, and the window rolls down. Soojung tilts her head to take a better look at it. 

“Overtake that truck!” Jongdae screams at them so that they can hear him over the wind now engulfing in the car. At least, he doesn't have to worry about Jihoon possibly recognizing his voice when he himself can't even hear Soojung's heart beating. 

Jihoon steps on the accelerator, his eyes now back on the road and focus smoothing out his exhilarated features. Jongdae's body slides on the roof, and he immediately straightens. He keeps his left fingers curled around the roof edge, but uses his right hand for balance as he goes from lying flat on the car's roof to crouching down. He draws his attention back on the figure now cautiously walking on the trailer's roof. Despite the speed of the truck and the vehicle bouncing on holes and bumps, his balance is perfectly controlled. Both his arms are open wide on his side, gloved fingers curling up in the air. Jongdae locks his jaw as he draws out one more blade from his belt. His fingers curl tightly around it and his eyes go over the hooded figure, looking for the perfect spot to hit. 

Jihoon's car is howling in the night, and he finally swerves it as the tires eat a few precious inches with every second. Thanks to Jongdae's earliest suggestion, the driver has taken them to a much emptier street, and Jihoon seems to be aware of it. He doesn't even hesitate as he drives past the white line on the road to overtake the truck. He keeps a straight trajectory, his hands now more assured on the wheel than before, and Jongdae mentally thanks him. His eyes stop on the top of the trailer, and he prepares himself to jump, his vision still flashing red with anger and frustration. He throws a fleeting glance at the road ahead for any pothole, but his eyes meet something else, and he freezes. 

The other truck is blocking the end of the street, the trailer parked across the access to the construction site Jongdae implanted in the driver's mind. They must have made a detour to ambush them after they saw the other truck leaving the convoy. The most worrying isn't the idea of facing more armed men though, no, it's the huge lateral door on the side of the trailer opened on a man kneeling down with what looks like a bazooka on his shoulder. 

Jongdae gasps. He frantically hits the roof of the car, hoping it will be enough to draw Soojung and Jihoon's attention on what's ahead of them. Jihoon hits the brake so abruptly that Jongdae is propelled forward. His arm shoots up in a last desperate reflex, and his blade catches in the hood of the car. It tears the metal with a grating howl, and finally gets stuck, slipping out of Jongdae's fingers. 

He gets a strong sense of deja vu as his body flies up and up, and it leaves a false feeling of comfort in the back of his mind. Maybe if he keeps going up, he'll never have to fall down. But then gravity grabs him, sinks claws in his flesh and pulls him down before throwing him against the concrete. It burns through the leather of his suits, it burns through his skin and it breaks his body, gnaws it. Up and down merge together as Jongdae spins endlessly on the road. His healing power may be taking the worst of it, knitting together his ribs before they dig into his lungs, new waves of the pain erupt all over his body just after it's been healed. It's a never-ending spin of torture, and it feels like years when he finally slows down. His back hits the ground with a thump for the last time, and Jongdae is left chocking on the feeling of death lurking around him. The whole world has been drawn out, buried in a thick layer of blood that Jongdae can feel running from his nose and ears. He winces as he tries to breath in. Something is whistling, and fear explodes in his heart at the idea that it comes from his throat. Panic seizes his heart, and he moans at the idea that his own throat is producing that sound. Maybe he can't heal from anything, and maybe there's a hole hovering over his Adam's apple that will force him to spend his whole life gasping for air, choking to death and coming back to life. 

Jongdae's body goes into spasm as he lifts his hands to clench his fingers at his throat. The world is passing by slowly, or too quickly, and his senses seem to have abandoned him. He can't hear a thing, can't smell a thing. All is left is the taste of blood in his mouth and the whistling which gets stronger and stronger. Jongdae gasps, convinced that death has finally found him, when it reaches a level so high it feels like a thousand needles stabbing his eardrums, but then something flies over him, throwing a fleeting shadow on his face. Reality swoops down on him as his mind identifies the shape, and he gets everything back just in time to see the rocket hit the concrete in front of Jihoon's car. Jihoon loses control of it and the blow has the vehicle leaving the road with an ear-splitting screech of tires. 

Jongdae gasps as he painfully gets on all four. He lets out a shaky yelp when his leg gives way under his weight, and he feels bile burning the back of his throat upon seeing a fragment of his shin-bone peeking out through his pants. He looks up towards the bazooka man just as the latter collapses, a very distinct red hole between his eyes. Jongdae draws back his attention on the truck on whose roof the hooded man is still perched and isn't surprised at all to see the latter holding a gun. He jumps from the trailer to the roof of the cabin while the men in the other truck hurriedly aims at him. One of them throws himself on the ground to take the bazooka. Jongdae looks back at the hooded man, and even though he can't hear his heartbeat through the thrumming in his eardrums, Jongdae would bet his life that it's as slow as it always is, as controlled and regular. 

The hooded man aims between his feet, just above the driver, and presses the trigger. He whirls around, dashes towards the end of the truck and jumps off the trailer, his body flying through air with grace and something that could be delicacy if Jongdae hadn't witnessed him kill a dozen of people. At the exact same time, the guy with the bazooka shoots, and Jongdae catches his horrified eyes when he realizes that the truck thrown at full speed towards them and that he just aimed will never stop. The whistling sound fills Jongdae's ears again, and he presses himself flat on the ground to protect himself from the upcoming blow. 

Heat engulfs him as the ground shake under him, and Jongdae clenches his hands on the back of his head, fingers catching in the fabric of his hood. He hears the flames roaring, the bodies burning and the bits and pieces falling all around him. And then he hears soles stopping just next to him. Jongdae's breathing slows down and seconds turn to ages as he braces himself. He focuses, his eyes wide open on the concrete he's still lying on, and the slight sound of leather rubbing against fabric sends a powerful shot of adrenaline through his veins. He rolls around, his hand flying to his belt, and draws out one of his blades to throw it at the hooded man towering over him. It clinks against the latter's own blade when he uses it to parry Jongdae's weapon. 

He clicks his tongue when Jongdae makes to take another one, and the latter freezes. He catches the hooded man's look towards his wounded leg, and expects the latter to finish him neatly, like he's seen him do several times already. To his great surprise though, the man keeps staring and time stretches out. Jongdae thinks about Jihoon and Soojung who both could be dead only a few feet away, and he thinks about Dahye probably still screaming in the earpiece. He hopes Jooheon and Namjoon have both gotten the help they could have needed, and that they will all be okay. But as his eyes are drawn to the black mask staring down at him, his mind slowly goes blank, and he finally stops hoping and thinking. There's something oddly comforting in the slow heartbeat filling the man's chest. It's so regular, so controlled, as though nothing had happened, and Jongdae remembers that the only time it actually sped up was when he touched the man and released his power. 

As though reading his mind, the hooded man carefully steps back. Whatever he was planning to do next is interrupted by another screech of tires though, and he whirls around, his body between Jongdae and the new car who just stopped before them. Jongdae hears the faint sound of the glove rubbing against the trigger and he rolls on his side to see who just got out of the car.

Dahye's eyes open wide when she takes in Jongdae lying on the ground and the hooded man threatening her with his gun. Her hand flies to her belt, and Jongdae tenses. 

“No!” he screams, terrified. The sound of the glove rubbing against the trigger fills his mind, and he feels himself crumble away. “No, please don't! Don't!”

Dahye slowly lifts both her hands up in the air, her black eyes glued to the hooded man's. She doesn't look half as afraid as she should be, but actually defying. Jongdae internally curses as he makes a mental note to kick her ass if they both survive this mess, and he desperately tries to crawl towards the man. 

He doesn't shoot. He doesn't even keep Dahye in focus. He lowers his arm, and stares at her for a little more. Then he kneels down, puts his gun on the ground, and whirls around. He doesn't even deign to glance at Jongdae's fingers inches away from his ankle, and dashes off towards the nearest alley. Jongdae follows him, confused, until he disappears behind the corner. Soft thumps tell him that he's hurriedly climbing up the walls, thus reducing Jongdae's chances to stop him to nothing. Even if he were to put his bone back into his leg, it would take too long for his leg to heal. Whatever hopes he had for tonight, they're long gone, vanished into the darkness with the hooded figure. 

“Oh my god Jongdae, are you okay?!” Dahye gasps as she rushes by his side. 

Her fingers hover over the open fracture, but she doesn't dare to touch him. Jongdae grabs her hand and nods at the damaged car behind her. 

“Jihoon and Soojung,” he tells her. He doesn't even have to end his sentence for her to turn around. She curses and jumps back on her feet to join them, her fingers already tapping on her phone. 

Jongdae watches her back walk away. He lets himself fall back on the concrete with a sigh. The trucks are still burning, and Port Ville is still living around them. He should put that bone back in his leg so that he can be gone before the sirens get too close eventually, but his body feels heavy and stiff. It was such a heavy defeat. He got nothing – neither the black hood nor Thorne's men – and he may have had several officers killed. 

Not symbol material at all. 

 

 

Port Ville is beautiful by night. It's alive, thrumming and almost fairy-tale like as neon colours highlight forgotten corners, and main spots turn into forgotten places. Jongdae has always liked the atmosphere falling on the city with the night's cloak, the slight tension and the intense freedom pushing back any boundaries drawn during daylight. He knows the city is dangerous, haunted by evil and darkness, but it still stands strong. It fights back, and Jongdae – well, Jongdae _is_ the weapon, and he loves that feeling more than anything else. This is where he belongs, to Port Ville’s night.

He lands on the roof of a building, his soles splashing water around him. If Port Ville by night is beautiful, nocturnal Port Ville under the rain is stunning. It looks like tiny magnifying glasses falling all over the city and reflecting the most vibrant colours on the darkest walls, and the sight always leaves him breathless. The rain blurs Port Ville's edges, and gives life to its curves so that the city appears to be crawling, undulating with life, which, for all Jongdae knows, could be the truth. During nights like these, he can't help but feel like Port Ville has a soul, a heart, and a smile that sometimes makes him feel protected. Why would he be the only one hiding in the darkness, after all? 

Another cloaked figure lands next to him in a flash of dark blue, and Jongdae smiles at the face hidden under a large hood of the same shade – that exact same shade lingering between Port Ville's golden glow and the night's darkest black. 

“I won,” he brags. 

He sees way before it touches him the gloved hand flying towards him, but he does nothing to dodge it. The contact is fleeting, playful as the hand slightly shoves him, but it's also heavy, tingling, and Jongdae's smile widens. 

“Of course you did,” the faceless man snorts. “You have superpowers.”

His voice is deep and layered with implied meanings. Jongdae hears the joke, but he also catches the hint of tension in the intonations and the jolt of electricity. They're both high on adrenaline and victory, their hearts still beating fast in their chests. 

“It was a good night,” Sehun says. Jongdae hears his hair ruffle against the fabric of his hood as he turns his head to glance at the city spreading at their feet, and it makes him all tingly. 

“It was,” he nods, but contrary to Sehun, his eyes never leave the latter. 

The tip of his hood is pointier than Jongdae's or Dahye's, just like the shape of his mask is sharper, but the eyes he lays on Jongdae are soft and tender. 

“We didn't beat our record though,” Sehun says. “We only rescued five people.”

“Let's try again tomorrow,” Jongdae offers, even though his voice does not wear the questioning tone it should. Maybe it's the height, maybe it's the adrenaline or the grateful words they received all night long, maybe it's Port Ville being beautiful and mesmerizing, and being his, or maybe it's just Sehun with his tender eyes and soft lips, but Jongdae isn't afraid. He doesn't feel unsure, nor does he doubt. The electricity is still lingering around them, probably due to an upcoming thunderstorm, but tonight, he wants to think that the universe has shrunk down to him and Sehun. They both are causes and consequences, and it makes him feel so powerful, so confident, so _unafraid_. 

He offers his palm to Sehun to seal the deal, and Sehun puts his hand against Jongdae without an ounce of hesitation. 

“We will,” Sehun nods, smiling. 

Dark blue fingers slide between Jongdae's black ones, and the glove does nothing against the burning sensation on his skin. It shoots pure fire through his veins, and Jongdae slightly shudders, his breath catching in the back of his throat. He suddenly realizes what night it is, what will happen next. Their first kiss, the ecstatic giggling, their second kiss, and their hands brushing on their way back to Jongdae's apartment. He remembers everything, how soaked they will be, how comfortable and warm his place will feel, how deep the kisses will be. He feels like he's been set ablaze, his skin turning into an inferno as sparkles spurt out from their intertwined hands. Jongdae even tastes gasoline on the back of his tongue, the smell toxic and heavy and that's when his heart jumps into his throat.

He gasps and looks up at Sehun. The latter's hand tightens like a claw around his as Jongdae tries to break free with a hoarse scream. There's nothing left of Sehun's sharpness, nothing of his softness either. It's just burned flesh, blistery skin and jutting out bones. Dark blue has become angry red, and the cape looks like it's merging with Sehun's back, thick black blood sealing them together. Jongdae whimpers as lidless eyes glare at him. 

“I'm dying tomorrow, I'm dying tomorrow, I'm dying tomorrow,” the thing – it's not Sehun any more, it can't be – chants, and its voice sounds just like Thorne's.

Jongdae starts screaming as the left eye slowly liquefies, the sticky liquid running down the thing's face. He's still screaming when it pushes him off the edge of the roof, and he keeps screaming as his body falls, sucked in by gravity and void. The certainty that he will never ever stop falling down just makes him scream louder.

 

Jongdae wakes up with a start, his breath coming out in erratic puffs. He startles when the blanket slips off his body and lands on Dahye's carpeting floor with a low thump that explodes against his eardrum. He clasps the back of the couch he's currently sitting on but the material cracks under his fingers, and it whistles in his mind. He winces with a slight moan and puts his palms against his ears as he curls into a ball. He presses his fingers against his knees and tries to forget how detailed the couch looks, how he can catch specks of dust whirling around, and how his own breathing sounds like a storm raging on against his ribcage. The tip of his fingers dig into his temples, and he locks his jaws as he lashes his power against his own mind, in vain. He's never been able to overcome his own defences, but how he wishes he could. He pictures the rush of electricity, the neuronal connexions, and the thoughts he would change, what he would delete, what he could heal, and it takes him back to a calmer state. He lets out another long breath which ends with a sigh, and he finally closes his eyes as his palms slide against his forehead. 

“Damn it,” he manages to croak. 

His voice feels like sandpaper against his eardrums, but it's not as loud as everything was a few minutes ago. His heart has slowed down to a much normal rhythm and breathing has become easier already, but Sehun's burnt face is still printed all over his eyelids. He rubs his eyes, swallowing down the tears that were threatening to take over him and then wipes the cold sweat from his nape with a long sigh that empties his lungs. His back cracks when he straightens, and he shudders. It brings back memories of the morning, when a sobbing Dahye was helping him pushing his shin-bone back in his leg, her hands covered with his blood. He glances at his shin and slightly wriggles his leg. At least there's no pain any more, but it still feels stiff. 

Jongdae turns towards the coffee table and reaches out to take the bottle of milk sitting on it. Dahye left it here for him, because dairy products always help when he's healing from an important fracture. Jongdae makes a face at the disgusting smell of milk and takes a long sip, internally wincing. He can't even remember the morning clearly. He knows Dahye helped him to her apartment, he knows they've pushed the bone back in his leg together, but even the pain feels distant, like he blacked out a few times. Which definitely could have been the case. 

He puts back the bottle on the table, pushing it as far as possible before grabbing the blanket still lying on the floor. He lets himself fall back on the couch before pulling it up on him, until it even covers his face. The fabric fills his vision in tiny repetitive details. The longer Jongdae stares at them, the calmer he feels. 

He finds himself tiptoeing around his dream again. It was so vivid, so close to the memories and to reality, and it leaves him with the impression that a black hole is now nesting in his insides. He feels empty right where he used to feel so full, and it hurts like hell. He misses Sehun so much, just like the person he was five years ago. Port Ville somehow felt smaller, like he could hold it in his palms, and he felt so powerful, so _capable_. He remembers the adrenaline, the delight and the certainty that he was helpful and important. It's all gone now, Port Ville's beauty, the thrill, Sehun and the future they were barely realising they could have together. 

Jongdae's phone ringtone explodes in the silent room, and he startles, his breath catching in the back of his throat. He sits bolt upright with a jolt, his eyes wide open as he looks for his phone. He finds it on the carpeting floor next to the couch, and his stomach turns over upon seeing Dahye's name flash on the screen. He throws himself on it and picks up with shaking fingers. 

“You're awake,” Dahye's voice fills his ears in relieved intonations. Jongdae still picks up an underlying tension that makes him want to throw up. 

“How are they?” he manages to ask, his heart pounding against his ribcage. 

“They're okay, don't worry. Mostly okay. Soojung has a concussion, Jooheon a broken arm, and Namjoon a few cracked ribs. Jihoon doesn't even have a scratch. He even came to the police station earlier, but Insung yelled at him so much that he started crying. He had to wait for an ambulance to pick him up and take him back to the hospital because Insung refused to let him drive.” 

Jongdae closes his eyes for a short moment, relieved. His insides don't feel like they're crawling up into his throat now that he doesn't have to worry about having killed police officers. He runs his fingers through his bangs as he sits back against the couch, biting his lips. 

Dahye's voice is softer when she speaks again, lighter. She knows him so well. 

“Insung was pretty pissed,” she says jokingly. “Said that if he were to hear Thorne's name in my mouth once again I would be suspended until I'm eighty.” 

“I don't blame him for not believing us,” Jongdae sighs. “I wasn't very convincing yesterday.”

“None of us were,” she retorts. She dropped the teasing tone and the tension is back on her voice. “But that guy, Jongdae... He's dangerous. You told me he was like you this morning, but I don't think he is. Sure, he can heal and run fast and he's strong, but he's not like you, he really isn't.” 

Jongdae thinks about the hooded man the night before, how he stopped short when his eyes fell on Dahye, and how he freaked out when he felt Jongdae's power. Which shouldn't even have happened because humans, plain normal humans, never see him coming. It's just his luck though, that when he finally meets someone like him, it ends up being a psychopath intent to kill him. 

“I'd give anything to know who he is,” he grumbles. 

“I think we should drop it,” Dahye immediately says. If the tension was underlying before, it's now in plain sight, heavy and laced all over her words. Jongdae frowns. 

“What?”

“We should stop hunting him down. He's too dangerous.”

“Dahye,” Jongdae cuts her. “Did something happen?”

She keeps silent, and for the first time Jongdae notices how noisy it is behind her. She's probably in the police station, and it's always noisy there, but now, it's a whole ruckus cracking through the phone. Jongdae feels himself tensing as he scoots closer to the edge of the couch, his breath stuck in the back of his throat. 

“Dahye,” he repeats, imperative. 

She sighs and he braces himself for whatever is about to come. 

“Something happened at Thorne's daughter's house,” she begins in a very cautious voice. “She probably locked herself up with all the men she could get her hands on after last night, but-” she trails off. 

“She's dead?” Jongdae asks, tonelessly. 

“ _Everyone_ is dead, Jongdae. I've seen the house. It was a slaughter. There's blood everywhere, and they're _all_ dead. Now, we don't have actually any proof, but it's him, it must be. Insung has made him the department's top priority. Between last night and this, he wants him brought in before the end of the week, and maybe it's for the best, you know. You didn't want to put the suit on anyway, so just-”

“Dahye,” he cuts her. “Don't.”

She sighs, her breath slightly shaky, but Jongdae is too deep in his thoughts to feel her worry. She's right, the hooded guy is definitely behind Thorne's daughter's murder. He's done nothing but taking on Thorne since he's come to Port Ville. The daughter doesn't add up with the rest though, it just doesn't make sense. She may have been the direct hand behind Thorne's men's doings, but she still wasn't at the top of the food chain. Killing her won't make the hooded man the new king of Thorne's territory. So what did Jongdae miss, what hasn't he seen...? He thinks about the hooded man the night before, how he was calmly waiting for the two trucks to drive by the building he was perched on. He seemed perfectly aware of the trap, the guns and the means deployed to kill him, but he still engaged in the fight. 

That's when it hits Jongdae. 

“It's not about territory at all,” he whispers, frozen. “It's Thorne. He's trying to lure Thorne out.” 

“What?” Dahye asks, dumbfounded. “Why?!” 

“I don't know.” Jongdae blinks, thinking hard. Why would someone want Thorne out? It's not a friend, obviously, otherwise he wouldn't have gone on a killing spree against Thorne's empire. He's doing everything Jongdae would do if he wasn't sane and bound by laws and – Jongdae's blood turns to ice. “He's lost something because of Thorne. Dahye, it's about revenge.” 

“Revenge? But -”

She's cut by a loud voice that Jongdae recognizes to be her partner's, Frank. 

“Dahye, come on kiddo, Captain Do asked for us!”

Dahye's breath hitches in the back of her throat. Jongdae can almost picture her fingers tightening around her phone. 

“Jongdae,” she begs. “Don't do anything, okay? He's dangerous and he's out for blood, so please, I'm begging you, don't do anything. Or at least, wait for me, okay? We'll work something out together, but in the meanwhile -”

“Hey, Jang you deaf?” 

“Jongdae,” she repeats, pleading. “Jong-”

Jongdae hangs up, his heart pounding against his ribcage. He swallows and looks down at his phone, so heavy against his sweaty palm. Dahye's name flashes on the screen again, the ringtone shrilling and ear-splitting, and the two buttons, red and green, stare back at him. Jongdae breathes in deeply and presses the red button. Then he turns off his phone. 

Dahye was right. He didn't want to put on the suit again, but he did, and it was for a reason. A very good reason. The man who murdered Sehun could be preparing for his escape right now, and Jongdae isn't going to put his hopes in the psycho who provoked that whole mess. He won't let Thorne put a single toe out of that asylum, and then he'll make sure he's transferred into Port Ville's prison. If it has to be Alpha's last mission, it has to end this time, and not be just paused. He's going to end this, once and for all. 

Jongdae pushes the blanket away. He grabs his ankle and brings his previously wounded leg towards him. He winces a bit as the pressure grows in his muscles, but he keeps forcing until his ankle is pressed against his thigh. He breathes in and leans in as he shuts his eyes to complete his short stretching out session. The bone has fully healed, as for his agility, well... it will have to do. His eyes fall on the bottle of milk as he gets back up on his feet, and he hesitates. It's the voice that sounds like Dahye’s in his mind that makes his resolve breaks, and he sighs before grabbing the bottle and drinking what's left inside. He shudders with a wince. He's never liked milk. 

It's still early, but Jongdae has to go before Dahye finds a good excuse to throw at Frank and Do Insung to bail out on them and rush back home. Thorne won't probably try anything in broad daylight, but Jongdae could still go and wait on the asylum's roofs. Plus, it could give him a chance to stop the hooded man if the latter has the same idea, which would be killing two birds with one stone. Last night was a disaster, but Jongdae doesn't plan on making the same mistakes twice. Now that he's one hundred per cent sure that the man can take his blows, he's not going to refrain from giving them. Port Ville is _his_ city, no matter how fucked up it is, and that guy isn't going to change that. 

Tonight, he's going to end what the three of them started five years ago, and then maybe he'll stop dreaming about Sehun dying or about the smell of gasoline filling his mouth. It sounds good enough a plan for him, so he grabs the Alpha suit left on Dahye's kitchen counter.

 

 

It starts raining when hints of darkness begin to loom over the city. Jongdae adjusts his hood on his head, internally groaning. His cape is wide enough for him to wrap himself in it, and it's impermeable, but the rain fills his ears in musical crystalline sounds, droplets splattering on the ground in tiny vibrations that Jongdae's senses can't help but pick up. His focus is already hard to maintain in the plain city background noise, but with the rain howling in his ears, it will be nearly impossible. With his hearing out of the game, all Jongdae has left is his sight, but if the raindrop keeps getting thicker and thicker, even that will be taken away from him. 

Jongdae curses as he squints at the asylum's courtyard spreading at his feet, the rain turning into a wall that his eyes struggle to pierce through. He won't be able to wait for something to happen, he realises, and sitting on top of the highest roof of the facility isn't the best option anymore. Thankfully, the asylum is composed of several buildings, most of them smaller than the main one on top of which Jongdae is currently perched. He gauges the distance to the closest building and presses his index finger against his earpiece. He's not Dahye-level when it comes to computer, but finding the frequency used by the asylum's guards was a piece of cake. Having Dahye by his side would have helped him a lot though, but with what happened earlier, she probably still is stuck in the police station – which, all things considered, is definitely a good thing for him. She's probably furious, and that just makes one more reason for his desperate move to work out smoothly. 

His eyes still taking in the space between the buildings, he finally sets off. The momentum he's gained is enough for him to reach the other building, several feet lower. The sound of his landing is muffled by the incessant dripping around him. Jongdae slowly crouches down again, the cape closing in on him. He presses his fingers on the ridge for support as he scans the surroundings as carefully as he can. In his ear, voices are going on about yesterday's soccer game, and what they ate for lunch, how hot that new female doctor is, and how boring their job is, but Jongdae doesn't miss a word. Chances are Thorne has men among the asylum staff – which he already proved by having a psychiatrist declare him mentally unbalanced – and any of those guards could be working their way towards Thorne's escape. 

Jongdae glances over his shoulders to check the backyard. The site is huge, but since he knows in which block Thorne is locked up, it at least reduces the surface he has to cover. What worries him though is the possible backup Thorne could have asked for. Crooks or not, Jongdae has to make sure no one dies tonight.

He picks up something just as he stands up to walk towards the nearest roof. He freezes and turns around, frowning at the weightless veil of darkness falling over his eyes. It's there, fleeting and slight amid the splattering sound of raindrops against his cape, but Jongdae feels it anyway. It's a faint vibration, something that his brain catches much more easily than his ears. He crouches down, one hand on the ridge and the other against his ear as he immediately starts bending the vibrations reverberating from his earpiece. He winces at the numerous interferences resulting from it, but keeps searching until the device in his ear vibrates in echo with the radio wave Jongdae picked up. It explodes in crackles, and a low, whispering voice finally fills Jongdae's ear. 

“- can come, I've got him.” 

Jongdae's head snaps up as his heart jumps into his throat. He curses as he scans the surroundings, looking for whoever that message was supposed to reach. It doesn't take him long to find out as one of the asylum ambulance rushes towards the main doors. Even through the wall of rain, Jongdae makes out the deadly metallic glow of guns in the hands of the men who get off the ambulance. He grunts and switches back to the asylum frequency before jumping forward to slide on the roof. The device in his ear crackles with gun fire and screams, shooting urgency and adrenaline through Jongdae's veins. No way he's going to let Thorne put a toe out of that asylum. He'll throw him back into his cell himself if he has to. 

Jongdae pulls out a blade from his belt as the gutter gets closer. Between the wind swooshing past him, the rain splattering everywhere around him and the sound of his soles sliding smoothly on the tires, Jongdae misses the sharp thump behind him. He misses the very faint wet sound of lips curling up into a smile, and he misses the slide of fabric against leather. He realizes his mistake a heartbeat too late, when the gloved hand has already closed around his cloak, thus stopping his slide dead and pressing the fabric of his cloak against his neck as he topples over. Jongdae gasps as his back hits the roof with a thud, the shock making him let go of the blade. The hood slides of his head, and he blinks the rain away, arching off his back to glance at the top of the roof. He finds a dark hood unsurprisingly staring down at him as the man holds Jongdae's cape in a clenched fist. He waves at Jongdae with his other hand, and Jongdae sees red. 

“You fucking asshole,” he grunts as he flails about to break free. 

The cape presses even tighter against his throat, and Jongdae's lungs give a protesting spasm. He tries to use some of the tiles to support his weight, but they're so slippery that each attempt ends in another session of thrashing around, the cape cutting through the skin of his neck. He fumbles with his belt, fingers desperately running along the leather until they close around one of his blades. Jongdae draws it out in a flash, aiming for the fabric tightening around his neck, but a silver sparkle flies right before his eyes, cold and metallic, and pain erupts in his hand. He half moans half groans as hot blood spurts out of the deep cut left on his palm, the sting forcing his fingers open. His blade clinks on the tiles as it bounces down the roof and then over the gutter.

Rage makes Jongdae's blood boil in his veins. He lets the rain wash away the blood on his hand, and lets his cells sew his skin together as he tenses his muscles and grips his cape above his head. He doesn't care about patches of darkness taking over his sight right where there should be pieces of Port Ville's sky, he doesn't care about the air missing from his lungs or the lack of holds. All he knows is that he really wants to punch that guy, and break a few of his bones. 

Jongdae uses his hold on the cape to haul himself up. It lessens the tension against his throat, and he finally breathes a lungful of air, relieved. He can feel a bruise blooming on his neck and making his breathing a bit messy and erratic, but he couldn't care less. He glances towards the ridge of the roof as he keeps hauling himself up, and meets the faceless man staring down at him. It's so easy to imagine the latter's eyes go from the cape he's still holding to Jongdae's hands using it as a mean to climb back up, and Jongdae's mind draws the conclusion in a heartbeat. He freezes. The hooded man steps forward. 

The tiles are too slippery, and their two bodies are too heavy for the hooded man to maintain his balance. He slides down, which makes Jongdae slips closer to the gutter as well until he is once again stopped dead by the cape tightening around his throat. It draws a broken moan from him that ends in a silent gasp as white sparkles fill the edges of his vision. He looks up only to see the hooded man hanging on to the ridge with one hand, the other still firmly closed around Jongdae's cape. Which makes his two hands very busy, Jongdae realizes. If he had enough air left in his lungs, he would chuckle, but he'd rather send the last atoms of oxygen straight to his muscles instead of wasting them on the victorious feeling swelling in his chest. 

Choking or not, Jongdae doesn't fumble this time when his hand flies to his belt. The ripped fabric of his glove catches on a blade, and he secures his hold around it. Above him, the hooded man tilts his head, looking more amused than afraid. Jongdae thinks he hears him groan something, in a tone too light and low for him to catch it in the rain and the cracking in his ear. The gunfire has stopped, and it means only one thing. Thorne is about to get out. 

Jongdae raises his hand, the tension in his muscles gathering strength and speed, and he knows he's about to hit the bull's eye. That is, of course, until the hooded man chuckles and lets go of his cape. 

Jongdae barely has time to register what is going on before his ankle hits the gutter and his body slides off the edge of the roof. He glances down at the wall of rain opening under his feet, the void sucking him in and the ground getting dangerously close. His fall is suddenly stopped mid-air when the hooded man's hand closes around his cloak again, but this time the tension is too strong. Gravity pulls on Jongdae's ankles, but the cape around his neck refuses to let go. His body is the battlefield, his lungs the bombing site, and Jongdae yields to the darkness crawling on the edge of his vision as he dangles off the roof. As his conscience fades to black, he catches a voice, low and sighing, but oddly warm, oddly familiar. 

“Do you _ever_ stop,” it says. 

Then darkness falls, and Jongdae does not hear anything anymore.

 

 

Salt, Jongdae thinks. It's faint, but it's there, lingering on the corner of his lips. It's obvious enough for him to associate it with the same smell he's been associating it for the past five years: gasoline. His insides flip in his stomach, and uneasiness fills him at the realisation that he's been taken to the docks. His closed eyes stop him from knowing _where_ on the docks exactly, but he keeps them sealed anyway. The darkness painted over the back of his eyelids is his most precious ally right now, so Jongdae lets it keep the upper hand on him. He feels the roughness of concrete against his limp body, feels the wall digging into his back and his hands lying on his sides, unbound – which is very good news. What he hears though isn't much of a celebration-worthy report, but slowly, discreetly, Jongdae still throws his senses at the dozen of sounds he perceives. 

Heartbeats are the most obvious of them. There are five of them – four without Jongdae's. Two are agitated, erratic, one is regular, although a bit faster than what's usual, and the last one is slow, controlled, and almost hypnotic. The closest one, which sometimes misses a beat or speeds up unexpectedly, is probably Dahye’s, he muses, as his nose fills with the citrus fragrance of her shampoo. He hears her breathing loudly, shakily, as she struggles to swallow her sobs, and it has him itching to open his eyes to make sure she's okay. The slow heartbeat stops him from doing so though, because that cold, indifferent ticking is all but new to him. The hooded man is in the room. 

Jongdae considers playing dead a little longer, just so that he can gather more data, but the idea leaves him itchy and uneasy. Dahye's shaky breathing fills his mind until he can't even hear himself think, and the two unknown heartbeats seem to be taunting him with _what if_ s. Whatever the hooded man wants, whatever his plan was, it's happening right now, and Jongdae has probably learned all he could from the unconsciousness he's been faking anyway. Not to mention that the asshole literally hung him earlier, and right now, Jongdae would very much like to get back at him. 

Dahye sniffs somewhere on his right. He hears her clothes ruffle as she probably switches her position, and Jongdae lets go of the hooded man's heartbeat, of everything that isn't Dahye. How far is she? Could he reach her with his hand? Is she wounded...?

“Please,” Dahye whispers, breaking the silence around them. Her voice is low, almost inaudible, but shaky. “Please, wake up,” she begs. “Wake up...”

Jongdae turns his head on the left and opens his eyes, his heart jumping in his throat. He meets Dahye's red eyes, her long dishevelled hair half out of her pony tail, and her lips trembling. Jongdae catches one heartbeat slightly speeding up somewhere near him, but he's intent on keeping his focus on Dahye. 

“Are you okay?” he asks her, and she answers with a sharp nod. 

“I'm sorry,” she sobs. “I”m so so –”

Someone clears their throat, and Dahye closes her eyes with a slight shudder. Jongdae's blood boils, his own heartbeat taking over everything he hears as his head snaps on the right so fast, his neck cracks. It's a thing to attack him, to play with him and being all smug and unstoppable, but Dahye is off limits. His eyesight flashes with an angry red that his brain translates in pure shots of fire through his veins, and he feels the poison filling his mouth as he gets ready to lash out on the hooded man. 

What he sees though stops him dead in his track. He swallows his anger, and lets the ice taking over his body freeze the adrenaline in his blood. 

“Hello old friend,” Maxwell Thorne grins at him, looking exactly like the man he was five years ago. 

It takes ages for Jongdae to take in the scene unfolding before him. Thorne is sitting on a chair, his hands bound together by thick ropes and tight knots. He's still wearing the asylum uniform, and it seems to be underlying the heavy madness glistening in his eyes, just like the sharp blade pressed against his throat makes his indifference stand out. Jongdae watches, the air crawling out of his lungs, as the hooded man straightens next to Thorne, the darkness covering his face staring back at him. He's holding a blade in each hand, the first one brushing dangerously against Thorne's Adam apple, and the second one leaving a trail of goose-flesh on another pale neck. Its owner watches Jongdae with huge scared eyes, sweat glistening on his forehead. In the darkness of the bare room they are in – _construction site_ Jongdae vaguely notes – the man's flamboyant red hair stands out, but the fear sticking to his skin is cold, desperate. 

It's a sight Jongdae can't seem to make sense of: the hooded man standing with his arms open, blades ready to slice throats at the slightest flick of his wrists, Thorne smiling widely at him, the stranger gripping his chair and looking like he's swallowing down the longest howl ever. Jongdae does understand the danger though, the lurking threat, and that is what breaks him out of his surprise. His hand flies to his belt and he grabs Dahye's arm and brings her closer to him. His fingers close on emptiness, and he looks down, taken aback. 

“Why, did you really think our mutual friend here would have left you your weapons?” Thorne chuckles. “Dear, dear, dear, you seem to have softened quite a lot while I was gone.”

Dahye presses herself against Jongdae's back, and the latter chooses to look at her instead of answering to Thorne's friendly tone. His own heart is now beating erratically against his ribcage, each pump so violent he expects to hear his bones crack any second now. She meets his eyes, and he reads the same fear, the same underlying anger in her pupils.

“I traced your earpiece,” she says. “We're in the docks, near Northhill Bridge. But he got me before I could do –”

“Now, now,” Thorne chirps in. “It isn't very polite to start private conversations when you're invited to a tea party,” he singsongs. 

Dahye glances at him with disgust, and Jongdae draws back his focus on Thorne. The latter flashes him an innocent look of mild surprise before he glances at the hooded man, who's faceless head is still focused on Jongdae. 

“But you are right to be confused though,” Thorne says with a saddened face that brings Jongdae's temper closer to the surface. He was never supposed to see that man ever again. “Because it's not very polite to organize a tea party and not introduce every guest either.”

He ends his sentence with a long sigh that turns into a gargle when the hooded man snaps his wrist to turn the blade between his fingers. He presses the flat part of it harder against Thorne's throat until even breathing seems to be complicated for the criminal. The stranger on the other chair whimpers, shutting his eyes for a short second as though gathering his courage. Jongdae feels the anger rise again. 

“What do you want for fuck's sake?!” he bites at the hooded man. “Who the hell are you?!”

Thorne laughs weakly, the blade closing most of his windpipe. The thin flow of air which manages to slip into his throat whistles as it struggles to reach his lungs, but it does not stop the man from breaking into one of the many Disney songs he knows by heart.

“I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream. I know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a-” 

“SHUT IT!” the hooded man suddenly snaps. 

He's so fast that Jongdae barely catches his gesture. The flick of his wrist is sharp and efficient, and the blade glistens as it flies up, then falls in the blink of an eye. Thick blood spurts out of Thorne's skin who chokes on his melody, the lyrics gurgling in the back of his throat as his eyes open wide. He raises his bound hands and presses shaking fingers on the wound now crossing his throat, and his composure crumbles and collapses as his jaw locks. Jongdae would enjoy the sight, he would definitely soak in the delight of seeing his worst enemy experiencing what it is like to be at the mercy of someone else's inhumanity, but the stain of blood on his vision and the metallic glisten of the blade have flashed danger through his whole body. His muscles are tense, ready to throw him at the hooded man at the slightest signal, and his eyes meet the red haired man's once again. He's pressed flat against the back of his chair, looking like he's not even daring to breathe because of the blade still pressed against his throat, but he doesn't blink, doesn't look away as Jongdae looks into his face. There's something daring in his posture, in the way he wears his fear in such obvious layers, and the longer they stare at each other, the louder the man's heartbeat gets in Jongdae's ears. Thorne's choking sounds die out until the only thing he can hear is the slightly slower rhythm of the man's heart. The left corner of the latter's mouth twitches, and he blinks, slowly but composed. He barely nods, barely moves, but Jongdae gets the message anyway.

He draws back his attention on the hooded man, whose head is tilted on the side, his hand back at holding the blade against Thorne's throat, and Jongdae gauges. He gauges everything. The distance, how fast he knows the hooded man to be, how fast _he_ is, and how violently he could lash out his powers once he'll have a hold on the hooded man. The red haired man's trust is shooting adrenaline through his veins, and even Dahye's hands tightly closed on his chest in a poor attempt to stop him from trying anything won't hold him back. She's pressed against his back, her breath whistling in his eardrums and her heart reverberating through his body. It all dies out though, everything, until all is left is thick utter silence, and Jongdae's slow, calm heartbeat. His eyes finally stop on the hooded man, and his vision comes into focus until he's all he can see. 

Something prickles his eardrum, a distant muffled voice, and it cracks Jongdae's focus. It's a whisper, and Jongdae follows the breathless words until he realizes they come from under the hood. 

“Should I...?” the man is whispering in the darkness of his hood. “Now?” 

Jongdae's blood turns to ice when he realizes his mistake. The hooded man is not alone. He glances around them, searching for another heartbeat, a hint about where his partners might be, and he meets Dahye's frowning face. 

“Is it really the time – yes, I think so” the hooded man keeps muttering while Dahye and Jongdae exchange a glance. He hears her lashes brush against her cheeks, and the realization hits him like a freight train. 

It's _silent_ , quiet. Thorne's grunts fade out, along with the red haired man's heartbeat and Dahye's fast breathing, until all is left is the hooded man's voice. And that really is the only thing left. Jongdae searches in vain. No radio waves. No crackling voice answering through an invisible earpiece. Just thick and utter silence. 

“You're completely nuts,” Jongdae lets out, which stops the flow of whispers from the hooded man. 

He turns his head towards Jongdae who can feel the weight of those invisible eyes on him. They're pinning him down, cold and judging, probably as detached as the man's heartbeat is. 

“Let me show you exactly what I am,” the hooded man says, in that same oddly familiar tone of his, light and amused, and under Jongdae's wide eyes, he lifts a hand, fingers still tight around the blade, and pulls down his hood. 

Jongdae watches black strands fall back over pale skin, over sharp and defined eyebrows. He watches the hand pull down the black mask which was covering the lower half of the face next, he watches soft lips curling into a sharp patronizing smirk and blade-like jawline coming into focus. Something crashes against Jongdae's ears, loud and destructive like a whole building blowing up, and a very distant and detached part of him wonders if Thorne had the time to hide a few of his bombs in Port Ville. Then it does it again, explosive and erratic, and Jongdae realizes it's only his heart repeatedly crashing against his ribcage. Dahye says something on his left, but the commotion inside him is too loud for him to make out her words.

“Meet Park Chanyeol,” says the only voice capable of echoing through him louder than his own blood thumping against his temples. “He's from the Bottoms, but he made it out of that hell hole and became a reporter for the Sailor's Gazette. Why is that, Chanyeol?” Black deep - _so_ deep eyes leave Jongdae's face to glance at the red haired man, who answers with a defying glare, and a burning muttered _I'm not scared of you, you know._ He is rewarded by a cold chuckle, and Jongdae is taken by those two eyes once again. “You see, Chanyeol wanted the people of Port Ville to know the truth about everything. He wanted justice, and he was ready to serve it himself if needed. Now, Chanyeol is one of the too few people money can't buy in this god-forsaken place. Chanyeol cares.”

Another smile blooms on the pink lips, a feral and ferocious one which cuts through the faint hints of softness lingering on the pale cheeks. Jongdae's heart hurls itself against his ribcage again, and a ferrous taste fills his mouth. 

“Do I really have to introduce our next guest?” the voice says. It's chanting, it's playful. It's sharp and icy. “Maxwell Thorne is well known by the police department of Port Ville. Charged of mass murder, killed one hundred and sixty-nine people, and probably even more. Leader of a mob organization, manipulative bastard. Is also called the Bomber. Oh, and he likes Disney songs.”

Thorne grins madly. The cut on his throat has stopped bleeding, but the red now staining his asylum uniform gives him a vampire-like look. Jongdae's heart pushes against his ribcage, punching his lungs as it does so, and the two black eyes fall back on him again. 

“As for me... well, you know me,” Oh Sehun says, standing taller than he was when he died five years ago.

“So I guess that makes one hundred and sixty-eight people” Thorne mumbles with a saddened look for his blood-stained hands.

Dahye whimpers against Jongdae’s back, and Jongdae has half a mind to turn around and check up on her, but he can't move. He can't even think, or breathe. When he blinks, the saltiness of his tears blooms on his lips. And he tries, he tries to work his way around that face he knows so well, but he can't. It just doesn't make sense. He has hundreds of sleepless nights to prove his point, litres of shed tears that make this whole situation impossible, but now, he's drowning in scents, and sounds, and lively details, all those things reality is made of and that he can't refute. He feels himself crack, his organs turning to lead. 

“You're alive,” he manages to croak out. 

Sehun stares at him, so tall, so broad, and so patronizing. Jongdae crumbles, he collapses, he falls to pieces. 

“What a twist,” Thorne says. He glances at Sehun, then Jongdae, and breaks into a huge smile again. “How unexpected!” he marvels in a loud voice. 

Sehun makes him shut up with another press of his blade against his throat. He looks so much like Jongdae's Sehun, but he's also so different, with his harsh cold eyes. He's taller and broader, his hair is longer, and it has lost the blonde chemical tint Sehun used to splatter on it, but he's also tauter, more still. Sehun was like electricity, he was fast and bright, but now light looks it's sliding off of. He was excited and loud, but this version of him is silent and controlled, and so, so distant. Jongdae can't breathe. 

“Sehun,” Dahye finally says. She sounds so sad, so childlike. She sounds like she's nineteen again and screaming in Jongdae's earpiece while an abandoned warehouse explodes. “Sehun, is it really you...?”

Sehun looks at her, and for a fleeting second, that's all he is. Sehun, the boy who would soften around her, who grew up in the same neighbourhood than her, who treated her like a sister, like she was the only nice thing about Port Ville. The boy who investigated with her about Alpha, and who ended up knocking on Jongdae's door with her. It knocks the air out of Jongdae's lungs, and it hurts, it hurts so much to watch Sehun being so tangible, yet so inconceivable. 

“You're alive,” he repeats, because that's really all he can say at this point. 

This seems to bring Sehun back to his senses, and his head snaps back to Jongdae. He lifts his blades again, with long gloved fingers that Jongdae can now remember curling around his wrists, ruffling through his hair, pressing against his sides. They tighten on the handles and the weapons dig into the soft flesh of Park Chanyeol and Thorne's throats again. The association of Jongdae's memories and what he's now seeing keep colliding inside his mind. He hears himself breathe rashly, his lungs convulsing painfully.

“I am,” Sehun says. “Which brings us to our special meeting. Tonight, Jongdae -” his smile widens when both Dahye and Jongdae flinch at the name. “- you're going to choose who's gonna die.”

Chanyeol's eyeballs bulge out of their sockets as patches of red bloom on his livid face. He forgets the blade against his throat as his body straightens on the chair, hands gripping the armchairs tightly. 

“What the fuck?” he protests. His eyes go from Jongdae and Dahye to Sehun and he glares at the latter. “Who the fuck are you anyway? If you think I'm gonna let you kill me, oh man you're-”

His voice cracks as Sehun presses the blade harder against his throat, the sharpness of it digging a bit too deep, and red soon slides along the smoothness of the metallic surface. Chanyeol gulps as Sehun flashes him a lopsided smile and a barely muffled chuckle. 

“Sehun,” Dahye calls out. She's finally let go of Jongdae's shoulders, and she's the one leaning forward now. Her palms are pressed against the bare floor, and her body looks like she's waiting for some invisible starting blocks to throw her forward. “Sehun, what are you doing? Please, let him go.”

Sehun loses his composure when he looks at her again, and his brows furrow as he takes her in, black eyes scanning her features. He slightly winces, and his shoulder jolts up, as though trying to block a whisper from blowing into his ear. He slowly shakes his head, eyes growing distant and cold and he looks away, confused and frustrated. Dahye's breath hitches, and Jongdae glances at her. They exchange a look, her eyes heavy and strong, stronger than Jongdae feels. _Do something_ they're screaming at him, urging and desperate. But Jongdae can't move. 

“Stay out of this, Dahye,” Sehun hisses between clenched teeth. “It's between me and Jongdae.” 

His voice has lost its playful and patronizing tone, and his eyes swoop down on Jongdae with liquid anger. He was cold and frozen a few minutes earlier, now he's burning, boiling, his gaze so furious and harsh on Jongdae that the latter feels it like needles digging into his face. 

Jongdae looks away, feeling like throwing up. 

“Oh no, Jongdae, you don't get to look away.” Sehun's voice is haunting, angry. “ _I_ didn't get to look away, remember? I was in that warehouse, and it blew up. I saw myself die after that asshole beat the crap out of me, and -”

“I'm sorry,” Jongdae breathes out. His mask catches his tears, but they eventually roll down his cheeks, cold and heavy. He dreamed about Sehun so much during those five years, and it's all coming back to him, every haunting burnt face, every look of reproach, and it doesn't even match what is now radiating from Sehun. It's seizing Jongdae by the throat, scrapping and tearing his skin. Jongdae doesn't bleed red blood though, he bleeds guilt and self-loathing.

Sehun squints at him.

“What?”

“I'm sorry,” Jongdae repeats as loudly as his shaking voice allows him to be. He looks up at Sehun, feeling smaller than he's ever felt, and the guilt he's been choking on for five years finally closes in on his heart. “I'm so sorry I was late,” he says again. 

His voice breaks when Sehun's eyes light up with liquid rage. 

“It's not about that, Jongdae,” Sehun hisses. “You were late because he told you you had thirty minutes to save me, but he set the bomb on twenty.”

Jongdae freezes and Dahye gasps. Thorne chuckles. 

“Oopsie?” he says with a soft, innocent voice. 

Sehun glances at him, but he quickly draws back his attention on Jongdae. There's a mad delight lingering in his eyes at the horror on Jongdae's face, and the most horrendous triumphant grin tugs on his lips. It last barely a second though, because the liquid fire is too strong, too angry and devouring, and Sehun is soon back at stabbing Jongdae with his eyes. 

_I’m giving you thirty minutes, my sweet friend. Isn’t that very nice of me? Thirty long minutes to celebrate our new friendship. Thirty minutes for you to try and save an old one._

Jongdae whimpers. The White Rabbit song from Alice in Wonderland pops out, and Jongdae presses a hand against his ear, wide eyes drawn to Sehun. The latter's gaze seems to harden even more. 

“But you didn't kill him, did you, Jongdae? So he just pulled a few strings and ended up in a nice and cosy room in the asylum, and it didn't end there, did it? People kept dying, bad things kept happening.” His eyes narrow at Jongdae. “Tell me, Jongdae, did your no-kill policy clean Port Ville? Is everything better now?” 

“Sehun,” Dahye whispers. “Sehun, stop.”

“No! You stop!” he snaps at her. His fingers clench around the blades, and he lifts his arms. Chanyeol lets out a short squirm that is cut by the thump of the blade driving into the back of his chair, barely a few inches from his skin. He gulps at Sehun, cold sweat glistening on his forehead, while Thorne throws a mild interested look at the other blade on the back of his own chair. 

Sehun throws himself at Dahye, but Jongdae pushes her out of the way. Everything happens in the blink of an eye, how Sehun's eyes fall on him again while Dahye crashes on her side, and how erratic his heartbeat suddenly gets. His momentum has him swooping down on Jongdae in a flash. Jongdae’s muscles tense, and he jumps on his feet, quickly walking back as Sehun keeps running to him. The distance between them decreases in slow motion, and Jongdae braces himself for the impending shock as he raises his palms before him. His fingers clench on thin air, electricity and power curling around their tips and ready to be lashed out on Sehun as soon as the latter touches him. And time gets back to his usual speed. 

Sehun comes to a halt with a slide. Jongdae looks up, taken aback, as Sehun glances at the few inches between Jongdae's palms and his chest. They stare at each other, Sehun's heartbeat slowly falling back to its regular speed, and Jongdae's heavy breathing filling the room. He has to slightly tilt his head to take in Sehun's full face, as he is much taller than he used to be, but up close Jongdae spots more similarities than differences. There's the pointy inner corner of his eyes that his Nightblade mask used to highlight so well, the light asymmetry of his lips, the roundness of his nose and the smoothness of his skin. He also smells like Port Ville by night, like rain magnifying neon colours and abandoned roofs. He smells like that night before he died, like shared laughter and longing gazes. Jongdae lowers his hands, his heart pounding against his ribcage. Sehun cautiously steps back as he does. 

He flashes another furrowed look at Jongdae then turns around to check on Dahye, who's barely getting back on her feet. For a short second, it feels like he's about to walk up to her, but he finally settles on heading back to the two chairs. 

“That was intense,” Thorne chuckles. “You got very fast, didn't you, my boy? Who should you thank for that, uh?” 

“Shut up,” Sehun hisses. “Or I'll cut your throat open.”

“Well, that would ruin your lesson, wouldn't it? This turns to be even more endearing than I thought! Don't ruin my fun, you party-popper.” 

“Oh my god, will you please shut up?” Chanyeol snaps. Jongdae doesn't miss his worried glance at Sehun. 

“You know, I still remember you telling us that we weren't allowed to kill, no matter what,” Sehun says loudly as he closes his hand around the handle of the blade behind Chanyeol's back. The latter flinches when Sehun pulls it out, and it makes Sehun smile. “I remember you lecturing us about doing the right thing,” he continues, glancing at Jongdae.

He stops next to Thorne, his body losing its playful dancing curves for sharper and still lines. His eyes fall on Jongdae again, the coldness cracking open on liquid fire and burning anger, as he pulls out the second blade from Thorne's chair.

“Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would have thought that killing the bastard who took me away from you would be the right thing to do.”

His voice has lost every hint of mischief, every note of disdain. There's so much anger in the eyes he is laying on Jongdae, so much resentment and furious bitterness.

“It actually was my last thought. I told myself that at least I would be the last person you'd allow him to hurt, and that you'd stop him once and for all. But the next thing I know I am alive and breathing and so is he. And you, you're not even trying to stop him.” Sehun pauses, and once again, Jongdae spots the boy he used to be lurking in the depth of his eyes. His own heart jumps in his throat as sadness and despair flash in Sehun's irises, and he feels the hitch to reach out. But then Sehun blinks, and it all goes away. Jongdae feels like he’s just watched him die all over again. 

“You know,” Sehun continues, defying but somehow hesitant. “I would have ended anyone who had dared to touch you. I would have killed them without a second thought.”

Sehun is raw, all layers of coldness and mastered anger stripped off of him. There's something creeping in on the darkness of his irises, something dangerous and different, something that has Sehun pressing the heel of his right hand against his own temple in a frustrated attempt at easing the monster eating him from the inside. He's not the boy who knocked on Jongdae's door so many years ago, he's not the young man who laughed in the night. He's the body that blew up, the bones that cracked and snapped. Jongdae chokes on his own tears, his breathing now so fast that he's about to hyperventilate. Another flow of breathless words leaves Sehun's mouth and even though Jongdae can't make them out, they scare him so much. 

Next to him, Dahye takes a tentative step towards Sehun. The soft thud of her soles hitting the concrete jolts Sehun out of his muttering, and he looks up, eyes narrowing at the woman who used to be his best friend. 

“What happened?” she asks him in a weak little voice. Her eyes search Sehun's, pleading. “Why are you doing this? What happened to you, Sehun? How did you -”

“It doesn't matter,” Sehun cuts her. The blades whistles as they whirl so fast between his fingers that they look like liquid metal for a short second. He stops them with a sharp flick of his wrists and presses them against Chanyeol's and Thorne's throats. 

“Like the people you killed don't matter?” Dahye counter attacks. She's still shaking, she's still half crying, but right now, she's also straightening and standing tall and accusative at Sehun. She doesn't flinch when he draws back his attention on her. 

“They were hardly innocent people, Dahye.”

“Oh don't talk to me like I'm stupid,” she hisses, her temper flashing through her eyes. If anything, it seems to amuse Sehun though. “What about Barbara Thorne, uh? She was no thief.” 

Jongdae watches as the raw anger that was seizing Sehun's muscles barely a few seconds earlier dissolves while he flashes her a lopsided smile. Dahye's voice on the phone rings through his mind again, and his insides squirm with uneasiness as he's reminded of her tone, the fear laced all over her words. He didn't see Barbara Thorne's house, but he did see Sehun kill several people without an ounce of hesitation. It was one thing when it was just a hood and a featureless face, but it's now a familiar hand, a familiar pair of eyes. It's Sehun, _their_ Sehun.

“Come on, Dahye,” Sehun smiles. “You're not that naïve. Someone had to give the orders while dear papa was locked up now, hadn't they?”

This seems to knock the anger out of Dahye, and she looks into Sehun's face with glistening eyes, all the colours draining from her face. Jongdae feels the same realization she's going through swooping down on him, but he just doesn't know how to react any more. The sight of Sehun's pointy teeth and the corner of his lips curling up as he's mentioning the slaughter of a good dozen of people just doesn't add up, none of this makes sense. 

“Come to the point now, boy,” Thorne intervenes again. His chin is resting against his chest, but his cold blue eyes are focused on Sehun. He has lost the crazy demeanour and his amused look and is now oddly still and controlled. Jongdae picks up his heartbeat, which was erratic before and too fast to be considered calm. It is now slowing down. Uneasiness creeps up on him and he glances at Dahye, but she's obviously too upset to care about Thorne. 

“Listen, Sehun –” Jongdae starts. The name feels weird in his mouth, almost unknown to his ears. It's been so long since the last time he said it out loud. 

“No, _you_ listen,” Sehun cuts him. “You were so convinced everyone deserved a second chance, weren't you? Let me show you – no, let me _teach_ you that some lives are worth more than others. You didn't want to believe it, and look what happened. People died during those five years he was away, and their blood? It's on your hands, Jongdae. Innocent people died because you just couldn't kill a fucking sociopath.” 

Sehun takes a deep breath to regain his composure. He slightly shakes his head, muttering a low and pleading _shut up_ as he does so, and his focus crumbles. Jongdae feels the pull again, the itching need to take Sehun's hands and keep them between his fingers. When Sehun's eyes snap back to him, they're sharp and cutting, but they're right, and they cut right through Jongdae's heart. 

“You can only save the innocent if you kill the villain, Jongdae. It’s Thorne or nice and honest Chanyeol. Make your choice, and then you'll understand... yes, you'll understand that justice often requires more than a scowl and four walls.” 

Chanyeol bites his lips and Jongdae can almost hear the scream he's holding back leaping into his throat and curling on the back of his tongue. Sehun presses the blades harder against his victims' throats, and Jongdae leans forward, his ears buzzing. How many times has he dreamed about doing it? His eyes slide across Thorne's face, and he thinks about the nightmares, about the random pieces of dialogues still echoing in his mind five years later. How many times has he dreamed about stopping that voice from singing any song forever? 

Sehun's hold tightens even more. Chanyeol tilts his head back to try and soften the pressure, and he gulps against the blade, blood dripping out from the tiny cuts. Thorne doesn't move, as though he couldn’t care less. 

“So, who should I kill, Jongdae?” Sehun spits, fire and rage heavy in his words. “Sweet, hard-working Chanyeol? Or the mass murderer who whipped out entire families? I'm done arguing and you, you are done pretending that someone like him wouldn't be better dead.” 

Thorne snorts. The cut on his throat has started to bleed again, blood blooming all over his jawline as he tilts down his head, his chin following his collarbone. His eyes land on Jongdae, deep and cold, scary and calculating. Angry. Jongdae's instincts scream hundreds of warning in his head. But he could end this. He could turn off the evil light behind those azure eyes. 

“You should kill me, boy,” Thorne says, his voice lower, threatening. “Because if you don't, you know that I'll escape, and I'll kill him for what he did to my daughter. Only this time, I'll make sure his heart sits out of his ribcage.” 

Jongdae turns his head towards Sehun, his blood freezing. The latter is still waiting, watching him, but something clicks in Jongdae's mind. Maybe there was a reason why Thorne seemed to enjoy this so much, maybe there was a reason why he hasn’t looked afraid to die a single time, and something tells him they now are getting closer and closer to that reason. 

“Sehun, please,” Jongdae tries again, but Sehun's eyes narrow at him and he presses the blades harder against Thorne's and Chanyeol's throats. The latter chokes as blood now trickles under his collar. 

“It's the two of them or only one, Jongdae. You just have to ch-”

The window behind Jongdae blows up, and something whistles past him, fast and thin, but deadly. Jongdae catches a flash of metal before it cuts through Sehun's leather jacket just above his heart. Then all Jongdae hears is the glass falling on the concrete behind him, crystalline rain filling his ears until it's painful and shrilling. He flinches as Sehun's body falls backward, and his senses shrink to nothingness, driven out of his control by the ear-splitting echo in his mind. 

This is when all hell breaks loose. 

More windows are shattered, and Jongdae falls to his knees, struggling to get his focus back. Something rolls towards him in sharp, metallic sounds, and his eyes lands on the small, cold device. His heart leaps into his throat. 

“Dahye!” he calls out, kicking the smoke bomb away. 

He whirls around, throws himself at Dahye, and the grenade goes out. The several detonations follows, and smoke already fills the room. A thick white wall falls over his eyes and his lungs clench in protest at the cloudiness filling them. His body finally hits Dahye’s, the shock drawing a whimper out of her, but her hands close like claws around Jongdae's arms anyway. He grabs her by the neck and presses on it until her legs give up and she has to kneel down, then he bends down and wraps himself around her as efficiently as he can. Smoke grenades open assaults, and they’re never the only weapons. 

Something else blows up on the back of the room, and judging by the loud thuds and the vibrations that follow, Jongdae guesses a part of the wall just collapsed. Dahye struggles between his arms, and he curses, pinching her to force her to calm down. Guns start firing, and heavy shoes make the ground vibrate against Jongdae's knees. He turns his head and squints at the opacity surrounding him. Dahye's elbow crash against his crotch, and a jolt of pain takes over Jongdae's body, long enough for her to slip out of his hold. He bites his lips with a slight moan, but doesn't waste any time on the pain already fading out as he chases after her.

Voices are echoing, mixing with guns and groans until it becomes a huge chaos that Jongdae can't work with, not to mention the thick smoke still blocking out his vision. His heart clenches in his chest as he slides to a halt and desperately tries to make out something around him. He tries to pick up her scent, both his sight and hearing obviously useless in the mess around him, but he only smells suffocating chemicals and that same hint of saltiness always lingering on the docks. His mind instinctively throws him back to the last time he smelled it as heavily and panic settles in his chest as flashes of the warehouse blowing up fill his mind. This time though, he gets a new picture when Sehun's body joins the party, bullet hitting him on the chest and blood spurting out of the wound. 

“Dahye?!” he calls out. Let them hear him, let them come to him, and he'll deal with them, whoever they are. He was right about Thorne, it was a giant trap. He should have seen it sooner.

Jongdae darts off with his hands stretched out before him, power buzzing around his fingers. The blown up windows are starting to suck the smoke out of the room, and now he catches faint shadows in the distance. Three of them are larger, square and impressive, their outlines almost inhuman because of the gear they're carrying. Jongdae lets himself fall on the ground just before one of them fires at him and immediately starts crawling towards the silhouettes. There's a fourth one behind them, a smaller one, and it's getting dragged away by the three armed ones, hands still bound. Thorne. Jongdae locks his jaws and he jumps back on his feet. Who cares about the bullets, he can heal from pretty much anything anyway. He's not letting Thorne walk away freely, not after everything that happened.

Something crashes against his side just as the silhouettes disappear in the hole in the wall, smoke trailing after them. Jongdae stumbles, struggling to regain his balance until, at least, fingers scrape his throat and close around it, leather rasping against his flesh. They press the air out of his windpipe when he finally topples over, dragging his assailant in his fall with him. His back hits the ground, the shock reverberating through his bones, and another body lands on top of him. Jongdae's breath hitches as Sehun's eyes fill his vision, angry and spitting fire. He freezes when he leans in and takes in Jongdae's face though. Surprise paints all over his face and he jerks away from Jongdae with an obvious scared jolt. Jongdae watches him frantically glance around him as he gets back on his knees. He looks out of his depth and confused, until his eyes land on the hole Thorne used to escape, and then it's back to anger and rage. He looks back at Jongdae for a fleeting second, and jumps on his feet in one swift motion. Jongdae barely hears him run to the windows, but he easily pictures him, body flying through the air with grace and efficiency as he jumps through one of them. Sehun was already feline back then, but now he's bordering on surreal and predator-like. 

Jongdae closes his eyes, still lying on his back. Sehun is alive, his mind chants, and Jongdae can't make out the melody, doesn't know if it's a sinister one or a cherry carol. His body feels so heavy he sincerely doubts he'll ever be able to stand up. Gravity’s fingers are wrapped around his ankles, digging painfully into his skin, and for once in his life, Jongdae wishes the pain would never go. He wants to take the blow and bleed and bruise, and he wants it all to stay.

“Jongdae?” 

Jongdae's eyes snap open and he sits up before whirling around. Dahye and Chanyeol are both on their knees a few steps away. She has one arm wrapped around Chanyeol's shoulder, her other hand soothingly pressed against Chanyeol's chest while the latter curls up against her side. He is huge next to her even though she appears more fragile than ever. The strong and fierce line of her shoulders is broken, her long beautiful hair dangles sadly on her chest, leftover of smoke ruffling through it, and even her peachy complexion has turn to a grey ghostly colour. 

“Is he okay?” Jongdae asks, nodding towards Chanyeol. 

Dahye nods. Then she snaps, she breaks and she falls to pieces. She starts crying. Chanyeol looks at her with surprise before slightly wriggling out of her hold so that he can wrap an arm around her waist as well. Jongdae wishes he would run his fingers through her hair and kiss her on the cheek, because that always soothes her. He wishes he could be the one doing so, but he can't seem to be able to move. He's not even sure he still feels his legs actually. 

Chanyeol glances at him. His hair now takes over the lingering fogginess around him, the red strands echoing with the red blood staining his pale neck. 

“Who was that guy? Do you really know him?”

This is what makes gravity's grip so suddenly powerful, Jongdae realises. He has no answer to that.   



	2. ii. no man's land

  
**ii. no man's land**   


_Faster. Faster._

Sehun's breath is coming out in short erratic puffs that tear the silence apart. His heart is swelling in his chest, pressing against his ribcage until it feels like his bones are cracking under the pressure. Under the fear. 

Faster. _Faster_.

Sehun lets out a helpless groan as he glances over his shoulders, his body twisting with desperate spasms. A low curse slips out of his mouth as he catches the thick rope digging through the flesh of his wrists. He tries, again and again, to loosen the knot by wriggling his hands. The curse turns into a broken sob and Sehun looks up to scan the warehouse. It's so silent, so dark and odourless. Stinging pain shoots through his wrists as the rough material of the rope burns deeper into his skin, and Sehun's eyes fill with salty tears. He gasps, swallows his sobs and repeatedly blinks at the darkness around him. _What would Jongdae smell?_ he forces himself to think, _what would he hear?_ Sehun sniffs, pretends like blood is not trickling down his palms, and focuses on Jongdae, on the softness of his eyes, on the depth glistening in his irises when he focuses on his senses. Jongdae would probably smell essence or other boat related things, left lingering in the air by the day of activity on the docks. He would also smell the gasoline, stronger, toxic, splattered all over the warehouse. And he'd probably see moonlight dust seeping through the rotten planks of the warehouse. Jongdae would have hints of saltiness curling on the corners of his lips. Sehun mindlessly licks his, but the saltiness he tastes has nothing to do with the ocean. He closes his eyes, grits his teeth and pulls harder as he focuses on Jongdae. _What would he hear, what would he hear?_

The swell. Jongdae would hear the swell. Sehun's broken sobs break through the barrier of his sealed lips. Oh, how he wishes he could hear the swell, and not that ticking bomb at his feet, or his own sobs. He wishes he could hear waves and lapping instead of the silence around him. He wishes Jongdae would be here, breaking it with the sound of the door opening and the thuds of his soles against the concrete as he'd run to Sehun and take him far from that place. 

He wishes he didn't hear Thorne's voice, his singing tone, the laugh in his intonation. _Oops, did I tell him thirty minutes? Do you think he'll be mad if I changed it to twenty? I like twenty. My birthday's on the twentieth, you see._

Sehun's scream explodes in the darkness, and blood fills his mouth as he bites down on his tongue, desperately trying to wriggle his hands out of the knot. His wrists are burning, but he can't think about stopping. The alternative is too surreal, impossible. He can't even check the countdown on the device lying at his feet, can't even look at it. He braces himself, closes his eyes, and forces harder and harder, until, finally, he feels the tension of the rope loosens. 

He freezes, and gasps as he manages to slip a hand out of the knot. His heart speeds up in his chest. He's going to make it. He's going to get out of that warehouse before it blows up, and then he'll take care of Thorne with Jongdae and Dahye. Everything will be alright, his mind is chanting, everything will be alright. He doesn't notice he's whispering it until he struggles with shaking fingers to untie the rope around his ankles. He lets out another curse. The blood all over his hands is making them slippery, and it takes him longer than it should to unbound his feet. But he finally makes it. He's _free_. 

Sehun hops back on his feet. Relief washes over him, more powerful than any lungful of oxygen he could have breathed in, and he allows himself a shaking gasp as more tears fill his eyes when the pain left all over his body by the beating he took wakes up. It wouldn't slow down Jongdae, he thinks, because Jongdae would heal, and it gives him enough strength to dash off towards the door a few steps ahead. It's close, so close. He's running faster than he has ever run before. 

He crashes against the metallic surface, against a handle that won't turn, against a locked door. 

“No,” Sehun breathes out. He throws a punch against the door, and more pain seizes him. 

He presses his palms flat against the door and pushes as hard as he can, but nothing happens. He kicks it, knees it, throws all his momentum against it, but the door won't move. Sehun's legs eventually give in, and he collapses, sobbing. 

He wishes he could hear the swell, but he wishes he would hear Jongdae breaking through that door even more. He wishes Dahye's voice was in his ear, whispering soothing words of comfort. He wishes the bomb would stop ticking his life away, he wishes – Sehun freezes, his sobs immediately fading out. He looks up, his heart beating wild in his chest, and his gaze falls on the boxes filling the warehouse. They were right about Thorne using the warehouse as a stash. So what if they were right about the rest? What if? 

Sehun jumps back to his feet, his balance weak and shaky. He rushes to the bomb anyway, hope shooting fire in him. He avoids the red numbers, but throws himself at one of the boxes and rips it open. He barely allows himself to breath in when his eyes fall upon carefully aligned test tubes. The dark blue liquid filling them stares back at him, and Sehun allows himself a fleeting thought about the irony of the colour, his own mask suddenly heavy on his face. How is he even supposed to put that thing in his blood? Will it even work? Will it give him a chance to survive the blast? Will he recover from _that_?

The question, the need for an answer has Sehun's curiosity beating him, and he glances at the bomb behind him. Nine minutes. He would have had nine minutes if Thorne had set it on thirty, just like he told Jongdae. Nine minutes instead of that single red one mocking Sehun. It's fleeting though, because it soon disappears, replaced by a threatening zero. 

Sehun grabs a tube and pops it open. It slips through his shaky bloody fingers and splatters on the ground at its feet. Sehun whimpers, but takes another one as fast as he can and pours its content all over his wounds, hoping they are deep enough, large enough. Once again, irony crosses his mind, and he lets out a chuckle that sounds mad and desperate to his own ears. He takes another tube, opens it and drinks the liquid, choking on its chemical, burning taste. He pours another one on his open wounds, crying, chuckling, shaking. 

He glances at the bomb again. Jongdae is late, _too_ late. But it's okay. And maybe it was supposed to be that way anyway. Maybe Sehun was meant to find out about Jongdae, maybe he was meant to fall in love with him. Maybe their first kisses were meant to be this good, just so that Jongdae would have the strength to kill someone. Sehun thinks about irony, one last time, when he considers how many months it took him to gather the courage to confess. He's going to die the day after he finally did. 

He chuckles, again. Damn, it's so silent here. 

 

Sehun opens his eyes to city sounds, cars roaring, people chatting, and voices whispering in his ears. Through Port Ville's daily ruckus, and the memory of the sound of his bones snapping and breaking, he hears it, distant but strong and persistent. The swell.

 

 

Jongdae stares at his fingers hovering over the door knob, details filling his eyes. He can see the sewing stitches of the sleeve covering half of his hand, the thin lines mapping his knuckles and joints, the numerous colours spread over his skin. A bit of red here, a hint of blue veins right there, and ghostly white for his bitten nails. Everything is so vivid, from the blinding light he can almost feel heating through his hood, to the smells around him. They're strong, poisonous. Jongdae has never liked hospital, mostly because of how noisy they are and how strong they smell, but today is even worse than usual. Something is reaching out inside him, desperately palpating the world around him on the lookout for the slightest flaw, the tiniest crack. Anything that will tell him that the last couple of hours were nothing more than a dream, a pure hallucination. Jongdae glances at the window at the end of the corridor, and his eyes fly past it, straight to the lighter shade of black on the horizon. The first rays of sunshine are staring back at him, smirking. The sun is rising, and Jongdae doesn't wake up. This wasn't a dream. 

He closes his eyes when his palm curls around the door knob. If only he could stop his senses from ruffling around him, if only he could shut it all down... The rush of colours and feelings makes him want to throw up, and his body feels heavy like lead. He'd give anything to be sleeping right now, but there are more important things to do. 

He adjusts his hood, breathes in and finally turns the handle. Blinding white swoops down on him, and Jongdae has to stop at the door for a few seconds before the room finally appears. He closes the door behind him and turns around under two pairs of very serious eyes. He meets Dahye's first, and he can tell from how she is sitting on a bland chair, stiff and straight, that she isn't feeling any better than he is. She's fixed her hair in a messy bun, and the bruise blooming on her temple is now on full display, weighing down on her right eye like a stormy sky. Chanyeol, who is sitting in the hospital bed, watches him with wide eyes, red hair clashing with the white gauze wrapped around his head. 

“Is he okay?” Jongdae asks Dahye with a short nod towards Chanyeol, whose eyes bulge out even more. Uneasy, Jongdae internally prays that the mask on his face and his hoodie are enough to counter the reporter's insistent gaze. 

“Yep,” Dahye answers. “They want to keep him for the day though, just in case. He was hit pretty badly.”

“I got stitches,” Chanyeol blurts out almost proudly before freezing and shooting an embarrassed glance at Dahye. “I'm sorry. It's just... I wasn't expecting _him_ to check up on me.”

The grim look on Dahye's face cracks over an amused one for a fleeting second, but it fades away as soon as she draws her focus back to Jongdae. He can hear her heart speeding up, as though she was itching to tell something but couldn't. He hopes she can read in his own eyes how much he'd want to be alone with her right now. It feels like an earthquake inside him, and he's splitting up, opening on the most painful tug-of-war he's ever dealt with. He wishes he could take Dahye's hand and get the hell out of this hospital without looking back, but at the same time, he can feel the urge to question Park Chanyeol and solve this whole mess. A faint part of him also keeps zooming on the window as it tries to push him to fly through it and wander in the city to try and pick up Sehun's scent. 

Jongdae swallows and blinks away the blinding glare of sunlight on the window to look at Dahye. 

“Are _you_ okay?” he asks. He didn't mean to emphasize that much on the word, but now that he did and that she's watching him with large deep eyes, he realizes how needed it was. She's his best friend, his better half, and they're in this chaos together. He's not only asking about the bump on her head, he's asking about the kind of support she needs from him. 

“Yeah,” she answers. “It's just a lump.” 

Jongdae mimics her nod. He keeps silent as his senses crash like waves all around him again, and he takes in the whole hospital, the smell of death and diseases, the moans, the breathless pleading, the nurses talking, the machines shrieking in the operating room, and mostly, Dahye's partner, Frank, getting in the police car parked next to the emergency room. He hears him sighing as he buckles up. 

“Well, isn't that fucked up,” Lee Jinki says as he turns on the engine. “I can't believe Thorne's out again.”

Jongdae's conscience flies out of the car before getting sucked into his body again. A thrumming migraine lashes out against his temples, but he pushes it away as he draws back his focus on Chanyeol. He waited for the cops to question him and Dahye, so now, it's his turn. 

“I want you to tell me everything,” he demands. 

Chanyeol glances at Dahye, as though waiting for her approval. She faintly nods and the reporter relaxes. 

“I'm afraid I don't have much to tell though... He dropped on me while I was taking pictures of – uh.” He pauses and throws a nervous look at Dahye. “Uh – I mean – while I was taking a stroll. He hit me and I passed out. I woke up to you on the floor and Officer Jang here trying to wake you.” 

Jongdae’s eyes travel to Dahye's face. She shrugs helplessly. 

“I tracked down your earpiece, but I think he was waiting for me. He got me when I got out of my car. I tried to shoot at him, but he hit me.” She gestures at her lump, frustration glistening in her eyes. “I didn't pass out though, but I can't give you many details. He just dragged me into the building, and he waited for you to wake up next to Thorne and Chanyeol.”

She pauses, but Jongdae knows she's not done. She bites her lower lip and finally lets the words spill out. 

“He was so strong,” she whispers. “I couldn't do anything...”

Her eyes are requesting answers that Jongdae doesn't have, and his own frustration echoes in her irises. They exchange another look, Dahye's eyes confused, and Jongdae's probably as helpless as he feels. For every obvious thing that screamed at them that it was really Sehun talking to them, there was at least two things that would have never been in the same sentence than Sehun's name five years ago. His super strength, just like his new ability to heal, are probably at the top at the list, but it's so long in Jongdae's head that he has stopped counting. It keeps replaying in his mind though, the anger, the icy stare, the stillness and the disgust... 

Chanyeol's eyes go from Dahye to Jongdae, and he freezes. 

“Wait, so you do know that guy?” He turns to Dahye with a suspicious look. “And you know him too, because he said your name...” he trails on as he takes in Jongdae and Dahye, his brows deeply furrowed. “And you two also seem to know each other so - _oh_.” 

Realization smooths Chanyeol's features, and his mouth open in a perfect _o_ as he stares at Dahye with wide eyes. 

“Of course we know each other,” she groans. “I'm a cop, Park, remember? We've been working together for quite some time already.” 

Dahye doesn't waver as she throws her unashamed lie at Chanyeol. She was so quick to react, so efficient with her performance that anyone would have swallowed what she said as the ultimate truth. Jongdae remembers her incessant whining about Park Chanyeol, the reporter who always found _the_ thing the PVPD didn't want the press to know though, and he can tell from how intense Chanyeol's eyes are on his best friend that he definitely isn't anyone. Deeming safer to draw his mind on something else, Jongdae clears his throat. Chanyeol immediately looks at him, and the imposing man he was barely a second ago leaves room for an almost timid looking young man. 

“Did he ask you anything about yourself?”

Chanyeol shakes his head. “No, sir – I mean Alpha. Uh. Alpha sir.” 

Jongdae pretends he doesn't see the faint pinkness blooming on Chanyeol's cheekbones. (In fact, he sees his pores, his sees his lashes, the slightly lighter splinters of brown circling his pupils. He sees everything.) 

“But what he told us in that room, it was all true?”

Chanyeol nods as he presses his lips together. 

Jongdae closes his eyes, and flashes from Sehun's big speech splatter his eyelids. He knew many details about Chanyeol, details that he couldn't have learned at the last minute. He knew who he wanted to be on that chair, next to Thorne. The Bottoms, the fight for the truth... Sehun searched for someone like Chanyeol. His speech was written before he even got to say it, because despite the anger that was flooding him and the several loss of self-control, Sehun didn't lose sight of what he wanted to do. Everything was carefully thought through. 

“It was all planned,” Dahye whispers. 

Jongdae keeps colours, light and details at bay by focusing on the darkness of his closed eyelids. Sehun knew Jongdae wouldn't be able to stay away. He knew exactly how to lure him to the asylum. That other night on the street, he also knew that endangering civilians would allow him to shake Jongdae off. He knew how to act, to fight, what to do and not do. He knew it, because he's Sehun, and because he's known Jongdae since he was sixteen. He knew it because Jongdae trained him, because they spent so many nights jumping over roofs and dark alleys together, and because he used to be the person Jongdae would whisper his secrets to in the dead of night. Jongdae, on the other hand, has no idea what to do. He would have never thought possible for the hole in his chest to be even bigger. It's a black hole now, and it's swallowing absolutely everything. 

“Whether it was or not, I'm pretty sure Thorne escaping wasn't on his list though,” Chanyeol points out. 

Jongdae opens his eyes. 

“That was on Thorne's though. He knew what was coming, and he was prepared.”

Thorne's chuckling voice pops up in his mind, like it did so often these past five years, except this time, these are new words, new implied meanings. _You got very fast, didn't you, my boy? Who should you thank for that, uh?_ Then it's Sehun, Sehun whispering and answering to a voice that didn't talk out loud. The migraine lashes out harder against Jongdae's temples, and he lets out a small sigh. 

“Thank you for your help,” he tells Chanyeol with a tired voice. “Now you should rest.”

Chanyeol's eyes open wide – a thing they seem to do a lot – but Jongdae has no interest in staying and watching the reporter protesting. He turns on his heels and walks to the door as Chanyeol's lungs fill with air behind him. He hears him open his mouth and straightens in his bed. 

“What? I've been abducted and you're not gonna give me anything? Who was that guy?” 

Dahye's stool cracks when she stands up and her voice stabs Jongdae's eardrums. 

“Listen Park, this is very serious, okay? Don't write about what happened. It's an on-going investigation. Am I being clear?”

The migraine lashing out against Jongdae's temples now feels like burning needles piercing his skin and brain. He takes off his mask, his back turned on Chanyeol's room, and the light brush of the material against his cheeks roars in his ears. Even the feeling of the doorknob against his palm is overwhelming, and the sound the door makes when he opens it is painful. Jongdae shoves the mask in his hoodie's pocket, mind set on leaving that place as soon as possible, but the hospital swoops down on him with a mix of colours and sounds so intense that it stops him dead in his tracks. Jongdae pauses in the middle of the hallway, his head hanging low and his eyes fixed on the yellowish linoleum. He doesn't realize he's crying before the first tear falls off and crashes loudly on the ground, near his shoes. He keeps seeing the warehouse when he blinks, the inferno, the fire devouring it, but now it's worse because he knows Sehun is somewhere, dying, changing, breaking. He needs to know what happened. 

“Jongdae...?” 

Dahye's soft voice is easily drowned by the ruckus going on around them, but it howls in Jongdae's ears. He jolts and turns to look at her. She gives him a long look before she reaches out to wipe his tears away, but she doesn't say anything. 

“You really think Thorne knew what Sehun had planned?”

Jongdae shrugs. 

“He had his men waiting, hadn't he? Maybe he didn't know it was Sehun specifically, but he was prepared. It could have been a set up to catch the man who killed his daughter.”

Jongdae's insides squirm with uneasiness when Thorne's sudden seriousness after the mention of his daughter comes back to him. He would have never depicted him as a fatherly figure, the kind of man who could love anything else than chaos and death, but those cold eyes didn't lie about his intentions. 

Dahye lets out a sigh. Her face looks hollow and she is so pale that the bruise on her temple appears almost black. Jongdae reaches out and takes her hand, slowly but firmly. He can feel her skin and all the little bumps, the lines and veins under his fingers, and his senses go in overdrive once again. It doesn't stop him from intertwining their fingers though. She glances at him, weariness heavy in her irises. 

“That can only mean he's up to no good.” 

Jongdae nods. Her heart is beating so loudly it's painful, and he hears her swallow and breathe. There's a soft thud regularly hitting his eardrums that he finally identifies as the sound of her blood rushing through arteries, and a low whistling that comes from her lungs. He hates how his senses make her look and sound like an intricate bundle of flesh and bones, because she's so much more than a miracle of biology, and right now, he needs her to be more, just like she needs him to be whole. 

“What do we do now?” she whispers. 

He hears every intonation, every drop in her voice so loudly that he slightly winces. As he takes her in, he realizes there really is only one answer to her question and to what they both are feeling. 

“Do they expect you to show up at work tomorrow?”

She shakes her head. “They gave me a couple of days off.” She pauses and looks into Jongdae, suddenly suspicious. Realization about what he's actually asking her finally blooms over her features, and the creases between her eyebrows smooth out, much to Jongdae's relief. “Who's our priority? Sehun or Thorne?” she asks. 

“Sehun,” Jongdae says with no hesitation. 

She nods in a heartbeat too. It wasn't much of a question anyway. 

“Okay, let's go to my place then. I'll suit up and we'll set off. Thorne's probably after him already.”

Jongdae opens his mouth even though he has no idea what to say – maybe something along the lines of _I'm pretty sure Sehun can defend himself now_ – but something blows up in his mind before he gets to say anything. He wavers and moans as he presses the heel of his hand against his temple. Dahye holds him, but Jongdae's vision goes blurry before he can read her worried features. Waves are crashing against his thoughts in loud raging tides, and the electricity, the buzzing, it's all too much. He's tired, and still in shock. The weak control he's usually able to gather over his powers is laughing at him now. Everything is so _intense_.

Not as intense as the icy cold fear which seizes him when the crackling of statics dies out to turn into a mad cackling. Dahye freezes, both her arms still holding Jongdae, and they exchange a heavy look. Behind them, the noisiness of the hospital has faded away, now replaced by whisperings and gasps, and still that same cackling. Jongdae spins on his heels and joins the larger hall in a few strides feeling like his heart is falling in his stomach. That fear, that sound... the TV programs hijacked... It hasn't happened once in five years, but now that the monster is out of the box again... 

Jongdae stops a few feet away from the reception desk, a few feet away from the TV set screwed above their heads, and he watches, powerless, as Thorne's face fills the screen. 

“Hello, people of Port Ville!” Thorne pauses, his features scrunching up in an overplayed expression of wondering. “You know I never knew how to call y'all? Is it Port Villers? Port _Villois_?” he says with a heavy French accent. “French people gave this name to our city back in the days, so who could answer this better than a pure-bred French _monsieur_?”

The camera shakes, and the sound cracks as Thorne moves it. Jongdae catches blank walls, large windows and wood, lots of wood. His brain narrows down the possibilities to the docks, and ninety percent of the Bottoms. He inches closer without realizing, hoping to catch another detail, and knocks into the nurse before him. She doesn't even react, her eyes set on the screen, and her hand barely muffling a gasp as another face shows up. 

“Well, bonjour,” Thorne's voice says off-screen.

He's rewarded by Arnaud Beaulieu's green eyes glaring at him. The leader of the French mob of Port Ville is standing tall, so tall actually that Thorne has to lift the camera to keep Beaulieu's face in the frame. His suit is ruffled, torn in several spots and covered in dust, but his hair is still neatly parted, and the flower he always wears on his jacket's pocket glows with a radiant red. Despite the beating he's obviously taken and the numerous guns probably aiming at him right now, Beaulieu doesn't waver when Thorne presses the camera against his face. It leaves a sweat mark on the lens. 

“Are you really one hundred percent French, friend? Or is it just a … how do you say that? Ah, yeah, a _mascarade_?” 

Thorne chuckles. Beaulieu gives him a patronizing look. 

“Your French accent is terrible,” he deadpans. 

Thorne's laugh reaches higher notes that whistles through the TV screen, and Jongdae grits his teeth. Dahye is pressing against his side, but just like everyone else, her eyes are glued to the screen. The camera moves again in a blur of greyish colours that Jongdae hardly makes out. 

“You know what isn't a mascarade though, dear neighbours? My nickname. Surely you remember don't you?” Thorne snickers as his face fills the foreground again. “Maxwell Thorne, the Mad Bomber, you used to call me. How sweet of you.” 

Thorne steps away from the camera, the latter in someone's hands now, and he presses a hand on his heart. His eyes turn icy and calculating, and the next smirk he flashes the camera looks feral, animal. 

“This is a public announcement. My men have hidden bombs everywhere in your beloved city. How many, you'd ask? Who knows, I've never been good at mathematics. I was more of a science nerd.” His jokes don't sound the same when he is not snickering them, and Jongdae can't help a shiver from running down his spine. “You can run around like the little ants that you are and try to find them all while hoping there isn't one hidden in your house, or you can just obey and no one will blow up your grandma. The Bottoms belong to me from now on. That stinky island is mine, and mine only. My men are currently taking over the bridges, and no traffic is allowed any more. Dear PVDP, you have thirty minutes to get the hell out of my island.”

Thorne stops, and his smile widens. His eyes get even more intense, and for a disturbing second, Jongdae actually feels them through the screen and the miles between Thorne and him. He can't help but think like there's a hidden message in that last sentence, and it hits him like a freight train. _He told you you had thirty minutes to save me, but he set the bomb on twenty minutes_. What a sick idea of an inside joke.

“After that, I catch one of you here? I push the button. You try to reach my island? I push the button. You breathe a little too loud? I push the goddamn...” Thorne turns around. “How do you say button in French?” he throws at Beaulieu, who is still standing behind him. 

The latter groans something and Thorne cackles. He turns back at the camera. 

“I push the goddamn _connard_.” He pauses and frowns. “Are you sure about that Beaulieu? Doesn't sound like button at all. But who cares, uh? The French have long given up on our city, but fear no more, people of Port Ville, the king is back.”

He spreads his arms in a welcoming home gesture, but his fingers clench in the air, sharp nails scraping the darkness around him. 

“For the boldest, I have another type of button. Commissioner Do, my dear sweet friend, did you miss me? I've heard you've been quite busy those past five years. How do I know, do you ask? Well, I've been doing some quality catching up with your boy, your _Kyungsoo_. He isn't very chatty, to be honest, so I have to hit a bit harder than on Mrs. Mayor wife, but well. We've been having lots of fun, don't you worry. _You've got a friend in me, you've got a friend in me_ ,” he singsongs.

His eyelids slightly drop over his blue eyes, and his smile fades out. For a fleeting second, Jongdae thinks the stream has died, and he expects some journalists from the news channel to take over and start blabbering barely comforting words, but Thorne suddenly starts moving again. He pulls out a gun from his belt, and turns around. His finger hits the trigger, and the detonation echoes loudly in the hall, barely covered by the gasps and surprised exclamations. Beaulieu's body falls to the ground and Thorne eyes the camera with a dark, serious look. 

“Now, this is what happens when people try to take _my_ territory.” He blows on his canon, cowboy style, and his face suddenly breaks into a wild grin. He curls his hands around the gun and uses it as a microphone. “ _In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. Weeeeeeeeeee oooh, wim-o-weh._ ”

His voice breaks and he coughs, half chuckling. His eyes fall on the camera again, and he winks. 

“I wanted to sing that Ratatouille French song, you know? But honestly, he was right, my French pronunciation _is_ pretty bad.” He adjusts his hold on the gun. “Anyway, people of Port Ville, you have been warned. Have a good day.”

He aims at the camera and shoots. The TV screens turns black, then white as statics buzz. Jongdae's throat feels like it's made of sandpaper. He turns to look at Dahye in the middle of medical staff and sick people sobbing, frantically talking or panicking, and he meets her dark wide eyes. 

“Jongdae,” she whispers. 

“You need to call Frank.” Even his voice sounds dry, like it's more dust than intonations. “Then we'll go to Lexie's.” 

“Take me with you,” a low voice suddenly says. 

Jongdae tenses as he picks out the huskiness of Chanyeol's voice. He immediately feels the heavy absence of the hood on his head, or the mask on his face. Chanyeol is close, just behind him, and he can feel the heat radiating from his body. Dahye immediately reacts though, and she steps behind Jongdae and Chanyeol, hiding as much as she can of Jongdae's back with her small figure. 

“Yeah, sure,” she mocks him. “Go back to your room, Park, and follow your doctor's orders. This is no time to hunt for a big scoop. People are going to die,” she snaps. 

“Oh come on,” Chanyeol protests. 

Jongdae feels the vibrations against his soles, he feels Chanyeol trying to walk around Dahye, but small or not, she's never let anyone step on her feet, and she's not about to do it now. Her hand close around Chanyeol's arm, and the fabric ruffles under her tight hold. 

“You're aware that I do know your name, aren't you?” Chanyeol says in an angry voice, and Jongdae winces. He had hoped Chanyeol would have missed that part of Sehun's speech, in vain obviously. He is a reporter after all, and a pretty good one. 

“Oh no you are not using that threat Park Chanyeol, or I swear to God I will dig into what you were doing earlier tonight, and I'll throw you in jail, do you hear me?”

Chanyeol gulps, loud and clear in Jongdae's ear. Next second, Dahye is grabbing him by the arm and pushing him towards the exit while making sure Chanyeol can only catch Jongdae's back. 

“Now's not the time for being reckless,” she hisses. 

Jongdae doesn't bother answering. He lowers his head and lets her guide him to the front door. The skin on his neck prickles with uneasiness, and he doesn't need to look over his shoulders to know that Chanyeol is following him with his round, intense eyes. He didn't use the name excuse earlier though, and Jongdae chooses to think it's because he had no intention to reveal it anyway. Even if he did, there are more than two millions of people in Port Ville, and there's probably more than one Jongdae living here. If Chanyeol really wants to run after the one behind the Alpha mask, it'll take him some time. Right now, Jongdae has bigger fish to fry. 

He tries not to think about Sehun watching Thorne's video, Sehun's eyes going icy cold as they fall on the face of the man that killed him. Sehun gearing up and going after Thorne as though crossing a whole island probably full of mercenaries wasn't a big risk. Jongdae hates to realize how much of him still wants to find him, even if it's just to beg him to stay put. He's still Sehun. For him, he'll always be.

 

 

Lexie's club looks like any other building in broad daylight. The fantasies die when the sun rises, and it turns back to concrete and plain bricks as reality barges in and clients walk away. There's still something about it though, something that lingers in the air, a hint of uneasiness and of _more_. The street is desert at its feet, and people seem to hurry when they walk by it. Lexie's role in Port Ville's mob life is no mystery to anyone, but for some reasons, it seems easier to ignore it by night whereas sunlight puts the spotlight on long lists of people who died at the hands of Pavoni's mob. 

“Are you ready?” Jongdae asks, his palms pressed on the low wall circling the edge of the club's roof.

Dahye lets out a long sigh next to him. She adjusts her leather belt, fingers mindlessly checking the tiny pockets for her smoke grenades. Jongdae feels her nervousness, thick and tangible, but he can't blame her. He wasn't so sure himself when he came back here after five years, and it was night time. He watches her make sure her costume is in place, her gloved fingers running along the edge of her dark purple cape then checking the mask on her face. She already looked like a bird back then, but five years of being a cop and growing older have given her a tautness and a sharpness that she didn't have before. When she looks up at Jongdae, long hair tied in a tight French braid on the side of her head and unsure eyes blinking every two seconds, he sees what everyone will see. He sees the pointy nose of the mask, he sees the leather, the power sleeping underneath it and the long cape like wings wrapped around her. 

“It's going to be okay,” he tells her with a little smile. “I won't let them do anything to you.”

She throws him a judging look as she finally pulls up her hood. Darkness falls over her face, covering everything but her deep eyes and the sharpness of her nose. 

“I don't need you to protect me,” she retorts. 

Jongdae smiles at her remark before drawing back his attention on the small alley beneath them. He pulls up his own hood, senses spreading around him. Going out as Alpha in broad daylight is unusual and overwhelming, but he tries his best to block out the sound of two millions of people going on with their daily life by focusing on the club. 

“Okay,” he says. “Let's do this.”

He hops on the low wall, a palm still pressed on it, fingers catching vibrations and low thrumming, and he jumps forward. The emptiness sucks him in, and he irremediably falls down. It lasts barely a couple of second, but the wind howling in his ears and the flapping of his cape above his head send a rush of adrenaline in his body. It wipes away the weariness weighing down on his muscles and sends a new jolt of energy through him. Something tells him he'll need it. 

“Show off,” Dahye mutters far above his head, and Jongdae holds back a chuckle. 

He hears her jump off the roof onto the fire escape stairs, but he keeps his attention on the metal door facing him. His conscience immediately slips through it before blooming in the room on the other side. There are two heartbeats. Jongdae didn't expect less. 

Dahye finally lands next to him, still as graceful as she ever was. The cape flutters around her and finally falls over her black shoes. They exchange a glance, then Dahye nods at the door. 

“Let's go,” she says. 

Jongdae takes in a lungful of air. Once last look towards the street behind them to make sure that no one is watching, then he walks to the door. Dahye's cape ruffles behind him, and leather cracks. Jongdae knows she's fighting herself to refrain from grabbing a weapon, but showing up armed would only make the whole thing more complicated. He braces himself, electricity buzzing in his fingers and skin over sensitive because of the power crawling under it, and he pushes the door open. 

Guns click, hollow barrels aiming straight at them. Jongdae and Dahye both stop as two of Lexie's men squint at them, fingers disturbingly close to the triggers. Jongdae picks up Dahye's heart speeding up, but she remains calm and neutral. Everything is still and silent for a minute, the air thick and palpable, and the artificial lights piercing Jongdae's irises and setting fire to his optical nerves. 

“They're here, M'am,” one of the guards say. 

Jongdae can't help a little smile as crackles and waves answers to the man's husky voice. Baekhyun's voice blooms against his eardrum, probably even louder than it does in the man's earpiece, a soft _bring them here_ laced with seriousness but with that same hint of playfulness Baekhyun always carries around. Lexie sure did choose her right man well as they both always look and sound like they're enjoying a good game of chest with actual humans as their pawns. Jongdae briefly wonders on which case he and Dahye currently are on their huge chess board.

The men lower their guns, and Jongdae glances at Dahye. She catches his eyes and relaxes at the slight nod he gives her.

“Follow me,” the man orders.

He turns on his heels and walks to the door without a single look over his shoulder. The second man though is as watchful as his colleague seems not to care, and his greyish eyes don't leave neither Jongdae nor Dahye as they follow suit. He stays firm, his hands tightly wrapped around his gun, and under the kilos of muscles he's wearing, his heart doesn't miss a beat. Jongdae glances over his shoulder when he and Dahye step out of the kitchens, and he catches the man's face through the portholes of the flapping doors. The man's eyes are still on them, calculating and metallic. He waits until they reach the turn in the corridor to finally turn around and aim his gun at the kitchens' back door. 

Jongdae draws back his attention on the guard leading them to the main room. The silence is odd, almost disturbing. He's used to female singers hypnotizing the audience with mesmerizing voices and carefully written lyrics, he's used to chattering and glasses clinking together, but even though he does catch a lot of activity – mostly heartbeats and soles hitting the ground – it is nowhere near the life usually nesting there. He and Dahye exchange another glance before they are stopped in front of another double door. The guard looks into their face, slightly frowning at the masks and the hoods, and he finally steps away before using a very large palm to push the door open. 

Jongdae steps into the hall, immediately followed by Dahye. The man closes the door behind them. 

The place is surprisingly similar to what Jongdae is used to, even though it feels somewhat bigger now that it's not crowded with Port Ville's golden privileged people, but the tables are still there, just like the red candles and the neatly aligned fancy alcohol bottles. There's gold, red velvet and wood beautifully splattered all over the oval room, and the same aura from another time lurks behind every pillar. It is not filled with laughter though, and no one is celebrating, and that is probably the most disturbing difference – along with the lack of gold on Lexie's eyelids. 

She looks up when Jongdae and Dahye enter the room, and her expression changes to one of delight and content. Her nude lips, which were twitching into a snarl a second before, now open on white teeth. Dimples press against the softness of her cheeks, and her smile reaches her eyes, thus softening the sharp blue of her irises. No matter how wide her grin is though, she is no club host today, she isn't here to entertain, and she wears this certainty as her armour. Her curves, usually emphasized with tight dresses, almost disappear under the soft waves of a sober black jumpsuit, and the only touches of colours on her attire are the golden chain belt on her hips and her high heels. Her long curly hair has been straightened then drawn back and tied up in a very strict looking ponytail with a gold ring in lieu of a hairband. Every hint of innocence she usually makes sure to highlight by night are long gone, from the roundness of her cheeks to the freckles sprinkling her face, and even her almond-shaped eyes have lost their softness. They take in Jongdae and Dahye, red liquid eyeliner sharpening their outer corners. Today, Lexie Wright is out for blood. 

“Well,” she smiles. “Don't you be shy. Please, come in.” 

She gestures at them with the same nail-bitten fingers she's always had, but her gesture is sharper, quicker. She's standing next to the bar, a map on full display before her, and four other men in suit on the other side of the counter. Baekhyun is the only one standing next to her – of course he is – and just like her, he watches Dahye and Jongdae walk closer with the shadow of a smile on his soft lips. They're like negative pictures of each other, Lexie's golden blonde hair clashing with Baekhyun's jet black hair and her dark clothes with his pristine tight suit, but Jongdae notices a hint of red on Baekhyun's eyelids too. Negative pictures, yes, but they both come from the same film. 

“Can I say how delighted I am to see that you're also back my dear,” Lexie marvels while she takes in Dahye with a wider smile. She reaches out, takes Dahye's gloved hand between her tiny one and lifts it up to her mouth to press a soft kiss on its back. “Now that there's two of us, I'm considerably less worried about the fate of this city.”

Dahye doesn't answer anything, but she flashes Lexie a light smile. The latter finally draws her attention on Jongdae, and the quiet power that was thickening the air around her when she was talking to Dahye dies out as she throws a flirty smile his way. She's always been different with Dahye, but in the end, it's all just masks and layers on layers.

“It's the second time you come to seek my help, friend. Because that is what you're doing here, isn't it? Do you have something for me other than your muscles clasped in tight leather?”

“Cut the games, Lexie, this is serious.”

Her eyes narrow at him, the thick blood coloured winged eyeliner on her eyelids standing out even more, but she doesn't say anything. Jongdae makes out a slight acceleration of her henchmen's heartbeats but he knows he's not the one scaring them. Lexie straightens, her cold metallic eyes looking into Jongdae's face, or at least into what she can catch under the hood and the mask, without blinking once. 

“Of course it is,” she purrs, but everything in her tone is ice and danger. 

The air thickens around them, but Jongdae keeps his eyes glued to Lexie's.

“What do you know?” he asks her. 

She lets out a little chuckle that Jongdae can't make out as mocking or, but Lexie doesn't let him the time to solve the riddle anyway. She presses her palm on the map, small fingers spread over thin lines that Jongdae recognizes to be the Bottoms borders. 

“I don't know much more than the police does,” Lexie tells him, and the slightly longer look she has for Dahye makes Jongdae uneasy. “They evacuated the Bottoms, but civilians who tried to go with them were shot on sight. Thorne has his mercenaries on the streets and bridges. He also has Do Insung's boy and the Mayor's wife somewhere on that island, which means that no one is gonna risk entering it.” 

Dahye and Jongdae exchange a glance. In a few sentences only Lexie managed to sum up pretty much the entire phone conversation Dahye shared with Frank earlier. Thorne wasn't kidding on TV, and he definitely has the resources to keep the police away from the Bottoms so for now, according to Frank, their top priority is finding the bombs hidden in Port Ville. Back-up bomb-disposal experts are coming from all over the country, and civilians have been asked to stay at home as much as possible. As for the Bottoms? Frank let out long sigh that Jongdae caught through the phone pressed against Dahye's cheek and said something everyone probably relates to. _Man, this is chaos._

“The military will probably come sooner or later,” Lexie continues. “But there are hundreds of people living in the Bottoms, and who knows what fucked up black up plan Thorne has up his sleeves.” 

She smiles at them, barely a shadow but still wild enough for her to look like she's going to jump at their throats anytime. 

“But that's not my business,” she says. “My only priority is to have Thorne killed.”

Baekhyun snaps his fingers, and the four other men immediately reach out. They bump into each other but hastily roll the map away with shaky fingers. Dahye steps forwards. 

“Hey!” she protests, but her protest dies out in the back of his throat as Baekhyun situates himself just between her and the counter, his broad shoulders blocking the view. She glares at him. 

“Here's what I know,” Lexie says, and her voice has definitely lost all hints of playfulness. “Thorne killed Beaulieu on TV today, and even though I can't say I'm mad the French bourgeois is gone, we can't have such things happening in Port Ville. This is our city, and by blowing Beaulieu's brains out, Thorne messed up with the oldest rule here, which is _respect_.” 

She hisses the word with a barely muffled anger glistening in her eyes. She raises her index finger to shut all possible protest and her eyes go from Dahye to Jongdae. He can see now, the killer under the flirty smile and the beauty, he can see the teeth and claws under the freckles and the curves. He finally has something figured out about her, which is how she ended up being Pavoni's most trusted lieutenant. 

“I've convinced Pavoni to step up,” she says. “Because we can't have a crazy man like Thorne ruling over our city. He has no rules, no honour, and this isn't how things work here.”

Dahye opens her mouth, and Jongdae can already feel her bite and sarcasm, but he stops her by pressing an arm against her stomach as he steps forward. 

“You convinced Pavoni to step up?” he repeats. “Where is Pavoni right now, Lexie?”

Her fulminating eyes soften considerably when they fall on Jongdae again, until she finally lets out a delighted chuckle. 

“What time is it, Baekhyun, my dear?” she asks without blinking away from Jongdae. 

Baekhyun checks his watch, silver matching with the pale skin of his wrist. 

“Eight and a half,” he says in a low voice only meant for Lexie. She smiles like she's the only who heard it. 

“Eight and a half,” she repeats. “So Pavoni just arrived in the Bottoms with our men.”

“What?” Dahye frowns. “But how did you –” She then freezes and glances at Jongdae before drawing back her attention on Baekhyun and Lexie. “With your men? There's going to be a gang war in the Bottoms!”

“Yes indeed,” Baekhyun nods with a pleased smile. 

“Why do you care?” Lexie intervenes. “People are likely to die in the Bottoms anyway. If it's not because of Thorne's shenanigans, it'll be because of that hard drug running in the streets or because they'll be randomly murdered on their way back home. Isn't stopping Thorne more important?”

“That's – that's complete rubbish!” Dahye pants, her breath shorter because of her anger. She turns towards Jongdae, her eyes begging him to say something, but Jongdae stays calm. If they want a chance to stop Thorne, they have to get _into_ the Bottoms. And Lexie is the key. 

“Have you sent enough men to stop him and his mercenaries?” he questions. 

His question has Lexie smiling broadly while Dahye curses under her breath glaring at Jongdae. The latter stays focused on Lexie's azure eyes though, and on the multiple things they're flashing at him. Mischief, pleasure, delight, and something like amusement. She slightly pouts at him. 

“Come on, my friend, don't try to play smart with me,” she simpers. “Ask what you really want to ask.”

Dahye frowns, but Jongdae breathes in. 

“Alright. Will you be sending backup?”

Lexie's smile widens while Dahye snaps her attention back on her. 

“Of course,” she says. 

“When?”

“Tonight.” 

“How?” Dahye asks, and Lexie answers to her with a soft, oddly caring smile. 

“Ask what you _really_ want to ask,” she repeats.

“We want in,” Dahye then says. 

Lexie chuckles. She glances at Baekhyun over her shoulders, and he looks back at her with his deep black eyes. Once again, Jongdae can't help but feel like they're sharing a huge inside joke that leaves him and Dahye out, something that would be funny at their expense. His skin prickles with uneasiness as he pictures strings tying his limbs to Lexie's soft, small hands. 

“That wasn't a question, dear,” Lexie smiles at Dahye. 

“Great,” Dahye snaps back. “Because I don't ask.”

Baekhyun muffles a snicker between his long fingers as he pretends to scratch the delicate looking skin above his upper lip. The air stills around them for a moment, and even Lexie's men behind the bar look uneasy. Jongdae cautiously steps closer to Dahye, powers gathering in his fingers. If Lexie considers Dahye to have put even a toe on the line, things will get messy. His eyes go from Baekhyun and Lexie, who are the biggest threats in the room, and he wonders which one he should take down first. Baekhyun, assassin wonder and master at stopping hearts, would be the most obvious reason, but if Jongdae has learned something during the years he spent dealing with Lexie is that nothing is ever obvious with her. 

“Come on,” Lexie finally tells him. “Don't go all stereotypical on her. Your friend can defend herself.” She looks at Dahye. “Can't you, dear?”

“Sure I can,” Dahye hisses between gritted teeth. 

Her threat isn't aimed at Jongdae, but at Baekhyun and Lexie, who, for some reasons, looks very delighted. They exchange a look and a flow of wordless information that has Jongdae deeply regretting his power over brains didn't gift him with the ability of thought reading. Dahye glances at him and he flashes her the shadow of a smile. She makes the last step towards him. Their shoulders bump, the vinyl of their capes brush and ruffle and in the silence of the club, it's the most comforting sounds Jongdae has ever heard. 

“Great,” Lexie finally says. “You're in. We're leaving from the docks tonight at nine o'clock sharp.” She raises a hand, curls her fingers in the air in a silent order that has the four men tensing. “Mr. Winick here will give you the exact address.” (Said Mr. Winick almost stabs himself in the eye by hastily drawing out his pen from his front pocket.) 

“What's the deal?” Jongdae cautiously asks. Dahye's heart is speeding up, her excitation almost tangible, but Jongdae would rather not get ahead of himself, specifically not with Lexie Wright. 

“The deal?” she chuckles. “We have a secure boat and a safe way to the Bottoms and I am giving you a chance to do what's right and save all those people you never met but for some reason deeply care about, and you ask me what the deal is?”

“Yes,” Jongdae nods, his voice a bit harsher than what he aimed for. “There's always a deal with you, Lexie.”

“There's no deal, love. You do your thing, and I do mine, is all. I am just taking care of our friendship here, boy. You do remember I came to your memorial service, don't you? Don't make me go to another one.”

Jongdae hears the quiet threat laced all over her words, the invisible guns she has aiming at him and the blades she'll have pressing against his throat if he does as much as try to stop her gang from lashing out at Thorne. Baekhyun's surprisingly wide smile makes it pretty clear who will have the pleasure to end Jongdae's life if he were to get under their feet. Jongdae glances at Dahye, and he meets her eyes already watching him. She's frowning, way too smart to have missed the silent threat herself, and it's obvious that she's now considering the proposition. Jongdae knows what she is thinking. It’s probably their only chance to reach the Bottoms without arousing suspicion. They'll improvise once they'll be on the island. If there's a gang war, they both have to be there, for the people. They'll figure something out if Lexie's crew gets a little too overwhelming. 

Dahye comes to the same conclusion, because she gives a little sigh and faintly nods. 

“Great!” Lexie chirps, raising both her hands in thin air. She opens her mouth to add something, but a sudden clatter coming from the kitchens interrupts her. 

Baekhyun immediately steps forward, muscles tense and eyes cold and focused on the double doors as more loud rattling sounds erupt in the kitchens, but he doesn't draw out any weapons. You never see Baekhyun coming, and that's one of the things that make him so dangerous. Lexie, now safe behind Baekhyun's body, doesn't look the slightest scared. It's actually quite the opposite, because the smile she has when looking at the double door makes her look like she's just won the lottery. Jongdae and Dahye whirl around as the four men all draw out their guns, barrels aiming at the door. 

Saucepans hit the floor in an explosive high sound that blocks Jongdae's hearing out of the room. He winces, tries to navigate through the clatter, but all he gets are more dishes falling and maybe indistinct groans. Until the silence finally comes back. 

Dahye's storm bombs clink between her fingers as she pulls one out from her belts. Jongdae glances at her gloved fingers handling it with ease, and ready to throw them at whoever will walk through that door. He draws back his focus on the portholes and narrows his eyes at them. 

That's when he hears it. The slow, regular, so steady, heartbeat. Jongdae feels his insides turn to lead, and his breath dies in the back of his throat as the oxygen in his lungs freezes. He opens his mouth but only manages a breathless croak that no one can hear. The double door violently swings open, and the guard who led them in the room earlier enters. Blood trickles from his left eyebrow and his chin is covered with the same red liquid coming from his exploded lips. He's as tall as he was earlier, as broad and buff, but now that Sehun is walking next to him, one of his blades pressed against his throat and his masked face focused on Lexie with cold determination, the guard looks almost small and weak. He's holding a broken wrist against his chest, and he whimpers when Sehun abruptly stops him with a tug. 

Sehun slides the blade under his sleeve with a quick flick of his wrist, and he then uses his free palm to press against the guard's throat. A strong, but just as quick, blow of his knee behind the man's thighs as the latter falling to his knees. His massive body hits the ground with so much violence that Jongdae hears his kneecaps crack and break. 

Sehun wipes his hands, and looks up at them, the darkness covering his face thick enough to drown his features. He stops his gaze on Lexie and spreads his arms on each side before putting a foot before him and bowing down, his body so sleek and graceful. Jongdae‘s heart crashes against his ribcage.

Lexie chuckles. 

“Well, this is how you make an entrance,” she smiles. “Am I right, Baekhyun?”

“It was spectacular,” Baekhyun agrees with a dull voice, the tension gone from his body. He glances at the guard still on the floor. “And very useful too. I think it might be time for a change in our staff.”

The man whimpers but immediately shuts up when Sehun glances at him. 

“What – What are you doing here...?” Dahye asks in a small voice that has nothing to do with the bold and strong one she threw at Lexie earlier. 

Sehun's head snaps towards her, and it's so easy to picture the look on his face now, the disdain, the coldness and the anger. There was a time when Jongdae could only picture smiles and huge beams on Sehun's face, and five years of mourning never ever altered those images. This Sehun has done it, in less than a few hours. 

The blade slips out of Sehun's sleeve, straight into his palm, and Jongdae tenses. Sehun glances at him before hanging the blade in one the leather holsters he wears around his thighs. 

“I'm not here to talk to you,” he groans at Dahye. “But to _her_.”

He nods towards Lexie, whose smile only broadens. 

“Please, do talk, Mr... Hood,” she says. 

Her voice is delighted, full of mischief again, but there's a slight drop on the hood name that Jongdae fully grasps. He looks into her face, and tries, for the umpteenth time, to read through her, but he can't break her walls. Something tells him that, once again, she knows much more than she's willing to give away. Behind her, Baekhyun glares at the four men who all lower their guns with a jolt. 

“I wanna be in,” Sehun says, in his detached, neutral voice. “You can make me work for you, I don't care. I just want Thorne.”

“No.”

Sehun looks at Jongdae, just like everyone else does in the room, most of them surprised – Dahye – and others definitely amused – Lexie. It came out before Jongdae even thought about protesting, but he can't say he regrets it. Feeling Sehun's eyes on him makes him uncomfortable, and it also hurts as Sehun's furious gaze from earlier echoes with the once loving one he had for him in his mind, but Jongdae doesn't look away, no matter how much he wants to. 

Five years ago, Sehun convinced them to split up so they would cover more ground. Five years ago, Sehun had his first one-to-one meeting with Thorne. Five years ago, Sehun died. Him being there, flesh and bones, doesn't change a thing. It's quite the contrary actually. Jongdae isn't about to make the same mistakes all over again no matter how much Sehun loathes him now. 

“No?” Sehun repeats, mocking. 

Jongdae holds his gaze for as long as he can, hoping that Sehun can read his reasons in his pupils, and he watches, desperately, as he looks for a hint of _something_ on Sehun's posture. Maybe it happens in the darkness under the hood, or on the lips covered by the mask, but Sehun doesn't give anything away. His posture is still straight, so still, and he looks back at Lexie, completely dismissing Jongdae's protest. 

Lexie raises her fingers, and Baekhyun immediately turns around. He looks at Mr. Winick who raises an eyebrow, confused. Baekhyun sighs, grabs the pen and write something on a waiter notepad lying around on the counter. Winick startles when Baekhyun puts back the pen in his pocket with a sharp gesture. He then turns around and slips the paper between Lexie's fingers. She smiles and holds it out to Sehun. 

“Lexie,” Jongdae thunders. 

“Come on,” she smiles at him while Sehun walks to her. “Don't be a party-popper and share with your friends, would you?” 

She looks back at Sehun who snatches the piece of paper and glances at it. He looks up at her and she winks at him, dimples making their grand comeback on her cheeks. Sehun shoves the note in his pocket and turns on his heels. 

“Please,” Jongdae starts as he takes a first step towards Sehun. “Don't, just... Let us fix this mess, and then we'll talk okay? We... need to talk.”

Sehun glances at him through the darkness under his hood. Jongdae only makes out the long strands of silky jet black hair falling over Sehun's eyes. His body is still, and his heartbeat is cold, slow, regular... distant. He looks away and walks to the front door without a single glance over his shoulder. His palm presses against the door with a soft thud, and sunlight floods the club when he steps outside. Jongdae watches the doors swing close feeling like his heart has just been ripped out of his chest. 

“I like him,” Lexie says. She turns towards Baekhyun, glances at him and finally draws back her attention on her men. “We'll call him the Hood from now on. It fits him.”

“Yes it does!” one of the men immediately says a bit too enthusiastically. 

He blushes hard under Lexie's gaze, stutters an apology and looks down until she finally chuckles, shaking her head. 

“I think that concludes our meeting here,” Baekhyun says. 

Understanding that he is speaking on Lexie’s behalf, Jongdae and Dahye exchange a glance. They shouldn't push their luck, so Jongdae takes the piece of paper Baekhyun holds out for him and turns on his heels, towards the kitchens. Dahye is silent behind him, and he knows what she is thinking. He can hear her heart beating erratically and her breath a little rasped against the back of her throat. He doesn't feel as assured himself. 

“The more the merrier,” Lexie says behind them, and this stops Jongdae dead in his tracks. 

_I knew you wouldn't be able to resist your past calling you_ , she had said when he came to her a couple of days ago. He remembers his own shock at hearing her confirming Thorne was behind everything, but he also remembers the confusion flashing through her eyes when he mentioned Thorne. He thinks about her dimples, her smile as she gave Sehun the address, and realization washes over him like frozen water. 

“You knew,” he croaks out. Dahye glances at him, confused, but Jongdae turns to Lexie. 

She looks up at him and hums, questioning. 

“That's why you sent me to those thieves instead of giving me anything on Thorne. You knew he would be there too.”

Dahye's head snaps to Lexie so fast that Jongdae hears her spine cracks. He keeps his attention on the smile and the dimples though. 

“Do you remember the toast I made?” Lexie asks him. 

_To friends who never die._

Jongdae's heart misses a beat and burning anger floods his veins. He takes a first step towards Lexie, his fists clenching, but Baekhyun immediately steps up and slips a hand under his jacket. Behind him and Lexie, the four men are aiming at Jongdae. Dahye gasps and grabs Jongdae's arm to force him to stop. 

Lexie's smile only widens. 

“Listen, I don't know what games you're playing,” Jongdae hisses at her. “But -”

“Of course you don't,” Lexie cuts him before he can say anything else. Her smile dies out and her face changes to a softer look, a more serious and bared one. For the first time, Jongdae feels like he's finally _looking_ at her, without the masks, the layers. The only problem is that he still doesn't get what he's seeing. 

“Of course you don't,” she repeats in a soft, light voice. She gives him another smile and turns back to the counter and the map that she unfolds. 

Baekhyun doesn't move, his black eyes glued to Jongdae, and Dahye tugs harder on his arm. 

“Come on,” she whispers. “Let's get out of here. We got what we wanted, it's the only thing that matters.”

Jongdae and Baekhyun stare at each other, Baekhyun's long fingers still buried beneath his jacket, and the air thick around him. For all the power Jongdae has, this is the only man he wouldn't be so sure to defeat, but no matter how much he feels like trying, Dahye is right. Much more important things are happening in the Bottoms right now. People are dying and a gang war could happen any minute. It already kills him to wait until the night to go there, but it's their only chance. So Jongdae breathes in and out slowly, locks his anger away and turns around. He pulls away from Dahye's grip and walks through the kitchens doors. Dahye trails after him, then hops forward to be at his level. She takes his hand and grips it tight. 

When they enter the kitchens and stumble upon the first guard lying in a puddle of blood on the white tiled floor, her grip becomes so tight that it's almost painful. 

 

 

The Bottoms, as a name, doesn't appear on any map. The island's real name has long been forgotten though, probably because it was something hopeful or poetic, something that didn't fit the harsh reality lurking in the Bottoms's streets. The island is smaller than Port Ville, and is connected to the shores by three long bridges, each one wide enough to handle the daily morning traffic. On the paper, it's a nice place to live, because it's far from the City where life gets noisy and unhealthy, because it's far from the docks, and because the island situation gives a more exotic vibe compared to the residential areas where everything is neatly aligned. On the paper, it's also a nice place to buy as the housing market is clearly more affordable than on the shore. When you look away from the paper though, you get the truth about the Bottoms, about its dangerous streets and its lethal drug problems. The Bottoms are connected to the shores by three long bridges, each one wide enough to handle to daily morning traffic, but when you live there, there are no exit doors, no easy way out. 

“Are we really going to do this?” Dahye whispers on Jongdae's right. 

He glances at her and draws back his focus on the huge ship blocking the horizon a few feet ahead of them. Colourful containers are piled on the deck, looking much smaller than they are supposed to, and the dozens of men boarding hardly look like sailors. Jongdae's eyes jump from one gun to the other, from bulletproof jackets to grenades and knifes, and his stomach gives a twist. He can hear the chatter mixing into one huge hustle, but the general tone of it gives him the creeps. Those are mercenaries, killers and heartless people. 

He turns his head towards Dahye and she looks back at him, her eyes so deep under the mask she's wearing. She spent the day at the police station as Jang Dahye to help the bomb-disposal teams until she was sent away by Commissioner Do himself – whose already white complexion had never been paler. Jongdae was out in the street, as everything but Jongdae, trying to help as much as he could as well. They both had the whole day to reconsider this, but Jongdae knows they feel the same way. Their help is much more needed on that God-forsaken island, and now that they get a behind-the-scene glimpse on what's about to swoop down on the people of the Bottoms, it's even clearer. 

“Of course we are,” Dahye says, her tone aiming for teasing but ending up sounding more resolved. 

Jongdae nods and makes to step out of the darkness they were both hiding in, but Dahye stops him. He looks back at her, surprised, and she flashes him a little smile before she adjusts the hood on his head. The cape undulates slightly under her touch, and it falls back all over his body, covering him from his head to his toes. 

“Those are mercenaries,” Dahye tells him. “You want to look as threatening as you can.”

Jongdae snorts while she fixes her own cape. He catches the slight bump of her hands hovering over her belt under the dark purple fabric and it makes him even more nervous. He gathers his own power, and lets it bloom right under his skin, ready to blow up at the slightest touch. They exchange a look and Dahye nods. 

They leave their safe spot between two warehouses together, their soles crashing against the wet concrete in perfect harmony. It doesn't take long for the first mercenaries to see them, and they freeze on the spot, hands clenching on their guns. A low whisper arises above the mingling of conversations, and this time, Jongdae does catch a few things, mostly his and Dahye's aliases. Yesterday, they would have been fighting them. Yesterday, Jongdae would have gone to great ends to stop all those ruthless killers. But yesterday, he was still investigating on Thorne and the hooded man, and the Bottoms, although as hellish a place as always, were still free. He thought he had learned the lesson five years ago but here he is once again, somehow marvelling at how a few hours only can turn the world upside down.

Dahye tenses next to him as mercenaries wave at her, some of them catcalling, other just throwing dirty words, and Jongdae himself feels his own temper rise dangerously close to the surface. Lexie's men have spread out on each side of the dock, thus opening them a road to the ship, but the gangway looks so far. Lexie is nowhere in sight, but he doesn't doubt that she is watching. She enjoys scheming just as must as she likes performing, and the theatricality laced over Jongdae and Dahye's entrance is far from a coincidence. Rolling out a red carpet would have been less obvious. 

Baekhyun appears at the top of the gangway, and silence immediately falls over the troop. Lexie's assassin differs from the mercenaries now watching him with a certain uneasiness in their eyes for he doesn't wear guns or bulletproof jacket. He is the same as always, broad and imposing, intimidating even in his plain suit, and scary enough to make all those grown-up seasoned killers hurry back to their business without having to ask. His eyes stop on Jongdae and Dahye, and his mouth twitches as though refraining a smile. Dahye sighs next to Jongdae. 

“Come on,” he tells her as comforting as he can. “Let's go.”

Jongdae takes another look at the soldiers boarding through another gangway before he walks up the one at his feet. Baekhyun's eyes never leave him as he gets closer and closer, and the twitch of his lips grows more obvious, although it never turns into a full smile. 

“Mrs. Wright would like to apologize,” Baekhyun says with a slight nod when Jongdae and Dahye reach him. “For what just happened. She doesn't condone that sort of prehistoric behaviour, and hopes that your deal with her is still on.” 

Jongdae's eyes narrow at Baekhyun. He hears his breath loud and clear, he hears his heart beating calmly in his chest, and he hears the ruckus around them. Stronger than that though, he hears the earpiece buzzing in Baekhyun's ear, the waves slow and peaceful as no one talked to Baekhyun yet. Jongdae doesn't question the truthfulness of his words though.

“Of course,” Jongdae answers as neutrally as he can. 

This time, Baekhyun's lips stretch, and a pleased smile blooms on his face. He snaps his fingers, and a dozen of armed men rush to him. 

“They will be taking you to the part of the deck where you'll have to stay during the crossing, and they'll make sure no one bothers you again.” _They'll tell us if you do as much as look too closely around you_ , Baekhyun's eyes tell, without him even trying to hide it. “We'll be leaving shortly now.”

He bows, back muscles rolling under his jacket, and glances at the armed men before turning on his heels and walking away. The men close in around Jongdae and Dahye in a perfect circle, their hands so obviously sliding on their machine guns. Dahye glances at Jongdae, her eyes a mix of reproach and regret, but she keeps quiet, and they follow the other men to the other side of the deck. The horizon is flat and wide on that side of the ship, the ocean calmly catching the last hints of orange shooting across the sky and making them undulate on the water. It looks almost peaceful, almost beautiful, but also desperate as the first stretch of darkness crawls from the heavy clouds above their heads. The Bottoms stand tall against the horizon, broken fractured lines pathetically trying to reach the sky, and shadows already stretched all over the tortured relief. 

“I don't like this at all,” Dahye whispers as the men stop in a semi-circle to keep them against the railing. 

“I know,” Jongdae says. 

Neither does he, but Thorne has an iron hand closed around the Bottoms, and another gang war is about to erupt. Lexie is their only chance to make a difference. 

The ship's engines roar in the night, and Jongdae glances over his shoulder to see people hurrying on the deck. He can hear dozens of soles crashing against the wet dirty surface, and he wonders how many mercenaries she has gathered. The water splashes beneath them, the sound thick and repetitive as the ship starts moving. There's so much noise around them that it raises thick high walls in Jongdae's mind, but he still expands his hearing, forcing his way between the talks and earpieces buzzing. He needs to know if Sehun is on board, if his cold, regular heart is beating somewhere on that boat, he needs to see him just as much as he wishes he wouldn't. He can taste the gasoline burning in the engines on his tongue, the saltiness of the sea is sticking to his face, and Jongdae is starting to think irony is having a lot of fun with him these days. 

(Does Sehun think about him too?) 

“So.” Dahye says. “Let's go over our plan again, would you?”

Jongdae nods and pushes every Sehun related thoughts away. 

“The top priority are the hostages, and the people living in the Bottoms obviously.”

Dahye hums. “So we should look for the hostages while making sure no one get hurt?”

“Yeah. Once the hostages are safe, we get in touch with Insung and have him send backup.”

“Discreet backup though,” Dahye muses. “We don't want Thorne blowing up Port Ville while we clean his mess in the Bottoms.”

Jongdae nods. He wasn't Alpha when the last gang war took over Port Ville, but he remembers the fear, the death toll, he remembers his parents being too scared to let him go to school. His first impulse would be to stay on the streets and help, but getting more help on the island is more important. _That_ will actually help protect the people. He squirms, and the fabric of his costume squeaks. There's a knot in his stomach, and a shallow feeling in his chest. 

“Don't worry,” Dahye whispers. “Everything will be fine.”

She has dropped the reproach, and her voice is now soft and soothing. Jongdae glances at her, and she answers his stare with her usual comforting eyes. 

“We find where most of Thorne's troops are. That's where the hostages will be. Once they are safe and sound, we take care of Thorne,” he says. 

“Preferably before Sehun.”

Jongdae snorts. Preferably, yes. 

Next to him, Dahye sighs again. She clenches her fingers on the railing and leans over it to glance at the dark waters undulating beneath them. The island isn't that far from the shores, but he's pretty sure Lexie won't have them disembark in the main port, which means that they'll probably bypass the Bottoms to reach some secured secret port on the other side. Still, the crossing shouldn't take more than half an hour. 

Dahye sits against the railing next to him, and he hears her knees crack. Jongdae glances at the darkness coming from the depth and now spreading over the surface of the ocean. The sight is mesmerizing and hypnotizing; it sucks in Jongdae's thoughts until his mind is filled with flashes of legendary sea creatures, ethereal mermaids with sharp claws and whales made of light only. The wind, the waves, even the engines, are soothing, and his body relaxes inch by inch. It's been twenty-four hours since the last time they slept, and the slow rocking of the boat under the feet is the closest they'll be to a nap tonight. He just hopes he'll be able to maintain a certain control over his abilities.

“Hey,” Dahye calls him out. 

She tugs at his cape, breaking him out of his reverie. He looks at her, questioning, but she nods at the other side of the deck in front of her. Following her gaze, Jongdae freezes upon seeing a familiar dark silhouette, face hidden under a hood and a mask, gracefully perched on the railing and insensible to the rocking. Lexie and Baekhyun are both standing next to Sehun, five armed men behind them. 

“What are they talking about?” 

Dahye doesn't need to ask, because Jongdae has already thrown every hint of power across the deck. He dodges any interferences, on the lookout for an anchor, anything that will keep him pinned to the conversation he wants to eavesdrop. He finds it in a slow, cold rhythm and a deep, regular breathing. His own breath hitches as Sehun's presence fills his mind, so overwhelming yet so far. 

“If you do find Thorne before us, I want a proof that he's dead. You'll be generously paid,” Lexie's voice says in a business-like tone. 

“You'll have his body, and I'll get to keep his head,” Sehun answers. Jongdae's heart speeds up in his chest as he guesses the soft thud of Sehun's lips closing then opening on plosive sounds, the discreet rasp of his tongue behind his teeth and the low vibrations of his vocal chords. “I don't care about your money.”

Lexie's chuckle is crystalline, playful, and layered on so many levels that Jongdae isn't even sure if it's amused or not. 

“Rewards aren't just about money, dear Mr. Hood. But we'll see after you killed the bastard.”

“I guess we will,” Sehun answers in what looks very much like a promise. It draws out another chuckle from Lexie. She doesn't need a super hearing to make out the threat lurking in Sehun's words, and it obviously amuses her to no end. 

“Very well, very well,” she says lightly. “I'll leave you to your intense sulking then. My men here will make sure you stay safe until we reach the Bottoms.”

Baekhyun glances at the armed men. They immediately deploy around Sehun, their formation a perfect mirror of the one currently trapping Jongdae and Dahye. Although Jongdae's eyes mostly remain on Sehun, he doesn't fail to notice the obvious nervousness of some of them as their hands clench tighter on their guns or their constant glances at Sehun. The shadow under the latter's hood gets thicker and thicker as the day dies away around them, but even featureless, his eyes are heavy and tangible. Jongdae watches him as he tilts his head towards the mercenaries, sleek and graceful body undulating in thin air like a snake when he slowly puts his feet on the deck. Lexie and Baekhyun walk away, and Sehun sits down, his position mirroring Dahye's current one. And he looks up. 

Jongdae's breath hitches. He feels them, those onyx coloured eyes that kept him awake for five years, and made him drown in affection before that. They're sliding on his body, piercing the vinyl of his costume, leaving bruises on his skin. The rest of the world fades away as Jongdae's whole conscience is drawn to Sehun, but he feels too much, even for Jongdae's mind. Dozens of memories and thoughts come back to him and blur the edges of Sehun's silhouette. The longer Sehun stares back, the harder it is to blink. 

“Sit down,” Dahye whispers somewhere next to Jongdae. 

She grabs his wrist and forces him down, but Jongdae keeps his eyes on Sehun – and he knows the latter keeps looking at him as well. He wonders how angry Sehun really is and how much of him has changed. He wonders, as painful as it is, what Sehun thought in the last moments of his life, and what he thought when he realized he was granted more time. He can only speculate about what really happened that night, but in every version, Sehun chokes on blood and melts in the fire. Him being alive doesn't change a thing, because Jongdae knows better than anyone that healing from the deepest wounds doesn't mean they don't come with pain. He wonders if it was the same kind of pain for him, the sharp, icy one, or if Sehun's pain was more like a burn, red on the outside and still eating his flesh on the inside. He wonders if that is what the voices Sehun seems to be hearing are made of. Crazy, burning pain. 

But mostly, he wonders what Sehun is thinking as they stare at each other. 

Mercenaries start filling the deck a while later, and Sehun becomes a puzzle whose pieces are cut by legs and bodies who walk between Jongdae and him. The last thirty minutes have thrown a heavy darkness around them and it gives Sehun a fantastic vibe, as though he was more shadow than man. He makes the growing number of armed men around him jittery and several of them step away, the arsenal they're carrying clinking as they do. Jongdae can't let go though, and Sehun doesn't seem to want to look away either. Until, at least, the lights on the ship all go out at the same time and everything disappears for a fleeting second. 

It takes Jongdae a heartbeat to get used to the night now surrounding them. He blinks, confused, but quickly realizes that real darkness is now filling Sehun's spot on the other side of the deck. The engines huff heavily beneath them, and the ship starts slowing down, the drop in its speed seizing Jongdae's insides. 

“Where is he?” Dahye says. 

“Who knows,” Jongdae whispers as he pulls himself up using the railing. 

The Bottoms are getting closer and closer, the island's relief hovering over them in threatening shadows. Narrowing his eyes at the night, Jongdae realizes that he was right about Lexie avoiding the main port but it really is no surprise. He looks up at the broken city watching them, and his body tenses while he tries to make out any scream or possible gunfire, but aside from the water, the boat, and the mercenaries getting ready to disembark, everything is utter silence. It's not peaceful though – peaceful does not exist here – but rather threatening, and almost like a bad omen. 

“I don't like this at all,” Dahye mumbles after she takes a look at the Bottoms too. 

Jongdae catches her fingers clenching on the railing, and he feels his own blood pressure rising. The fact that they're about to enter the Bottoms along with a good hundred of mercenaries doesn't help him relax, but what was true earlier still is now: there are people here that will need their help. 

“Okay,” he whispers as the boat parks along the edge of the docks. “Find the hostages. Contact Insung and find Thorne,” he recites.

The engines stop altogether, and the silence fills Jongdae's eardrums in unpleasant thickness. For a second, everything is still and quiet, from the city to the mercenaries behind them, then it all starts moving again. Gangways are set between the docks and the ship, and soles crash against the deck as everyone gets in position. About a hundred of earpieces start buzzing at the same time, vomiting waves that pierce Jongdae's mind and make him wince. 

“Alright,” Lexie's voice says in his mind as clearly as it echoes in the mercenaries' ears. “End of the line, all change please. You all know what you have to do, so get to it.” 

Jongdae looks behind him with a grimace as the mercenaries hurry to the gangways. They swoop down on the docks, waves of heavily armed men vomiting on the dirty grounds in a noisy mess of soles and weapons clicking. His instincts keep urging him to do something, but he agreed to this when he made his deal with Lexie, and now that he's witnessing her army deploy under him, he can't help but feel like this was her biggest reason to offer him a way in. He would have done anything to stop her otherwise, and she knew it. Frustration swells in his chest as he glances at his special bodyguards still blocking him and Dahye on the deck. The mercenaries who were guarding Sehun have already left the ship. Lexie wouldn't have tried to stop Sehun anyway. Jongdae's blood starts boiling in his veins. 

He looks away from the mercenaries on the docks and walks up to one of those guarding him and Dahye. 

“Let us go,” he threatens between gritted teeth. 

He catches the man's black eyes nervously lower to his hands, and Jongdae's power answers to it. The electricity rushes to his fingers, and his body starts feeling more like a bundle of nerve endings than actual flesh. Under his mask, his eyes narrow at the mercenary, who glances at his partners. 

“Well, we – we can't. Mrs. Wright's orders were to -”

“Order is such a big word,” Lexie's cheerful voice interrupts. 

Jongdae looks away from the mercenary's face only to meet Lexie's azure eyes taking him in with intensity and mischief. Her red eyeliner has been taken away by the night and the lack of light, and it now looks like a sharp claw spurting out of the outer corners of her eyes. She stops in front of Jongdae, much closer than anyone would have dared to, and Jongdae feels his own face heat with anger. 

“I just wanted to make sure nothing bad happened. Some of those men really don't like you.” 

Jongdae opens his mouth, but Dahye stops him by stepping up. 

“We need to go now,” she says in a strong voice. 

Lexie smiles and gestures at the closest gangway. Behind her, Baekhyun's face remains closed and indifferent. Jongdae looks away, drawing his attention on the gangway. The mercenaries are still around him and Dahye, and he feels even more aware of the arsenal each of them is wearing. 

He nods towards Dahye, and they walk away from Lexie. The mercenaries left on the deck all step away upon seeing them, some of them pulling their arms away so fast that Jongdae hears their joints crack. He almost regrets the suffocating silence of the Bottoms now that the ruckus going on around him blocks his senses. When they finally walk down the wooden gangway and he fully realizes how many men Lexie took with her, the proximity of so many weapons does nothing to help. He catches so many hands clench around guns, slide into stuffed pockets or close around knives and grenades when he and Dahye walk by, and the only thing stopping those calloused fingers might the device softly buzzing in their owners's ears.

“Let's get the hell away from here as fast as possible,” Dahye says in a low whisper. 

He nods shortly and gestures at a thick patch of darkness stretching between two high containers on the edge of what is already looking like Lexie's new headquarters. The fastest they'll be out of her henchmen's sight, the better. immediately speeds up when she picks up on Jongdae's gesture. With another glance over his shoulder, he falls into step behind her. He hears dozens of hearts beating in a thick cacophony around him, and he desperately tries to find his way in. He tries to untangle the knot of lungs swelling and blood pulsing so that he could pick up a hint of Sehun somewhere, but his only result comes in the form of burning needles boring in his temples. His mind draws a precise image of what is going on around him, the earpieces reverberating inside him, and the radio frequency they're using as a whirling thread jumping from one to the other. Jongdae mentally wraps himself around it while his eyes stayed glued to Dahye's cape swelling a few steps ahead of him. He knows Sehun is probably already far, but if there's the slightest chance of him still being around... 

Jongdae's conscience crashes against what feels like a wall for his body. Staggering, he comes to a halt, reaches out and closes his fist on Dahye's cape. She looks around, surprised. Once again, Jongdae's mental vision drowns in a buzzing chaos, a knot of statics and screeching electricity, but this time, he knows exactly why. His breath catching in the back of his throat, he looks back as his conscience jumps from the frequency used by Lexie’s men to the second one he just picked up.

“Someone’s coming -” he begins, but the sudden explosion of gunfire steals the rest of his sentence. 

Jongdae immediately lets go of unknown radio frequency and he whirls around in a blink of an eye, his muscles tensing and ready to propel him towards Lexie's men. Something fast and dark runs past him, shoves him away and grabs Dahye by the wrist. She yelps as Sehun pulls her towards the containers. His scent fills Jongdae's nose, invades his lungs, and it takes him half a second to get a grip on himself. He sets off in pursuit of Sehun. 

The latter doesn't go far though. He stops in the darkness Jongdae and Dahye wanted to go in the first place, and lets go of Dahye only when her body has been swallowed by the shadow of the high pile of containers. She watches him through her mask, the bird like shape cut for her eyes barely managing to hide how wide they are as she takes him in. He holds her gaze, his own eyes almost invisible behind his hair and under his hood. Jongdae slides to a halt when he reaches them. 

“What the fuck?” he snaps, and Sehun's eyes land on him with a cold glare. 

“I'm just making sure you're not going to risk her life for those scumbags.” 

Sehun then eyes cautiously the distance between him and Jongdae, and after another defying look, he steps back, his brows furrowing even more. This, more than the anger and the bite in his voice, hurts Jongdae deeply. 

“I was not – I'm not _risking_ her life,” he stutters. 

“Yeah? Because you weren't about to go full on superhero and save those guys? Who are, let me remind you, mercenaries. Some of them you've thrown in prison before.” 

Jongdae holds Sehun's gaze, feeling his temper flare dangerously. 

“Sehun,” Dahye intervenes. 

“Lexie brought it upon herself when she and her boss started this war. And Thorne had it coming too. There are innocent people here, people that actually _deserve_ to be saved. When will you understand?”

“Sehun.”

He glances at Dahye who slowly shakes her head. A few meters away from their safe spot, gunfire, screams and explosions are still raging on. Amidst the chaos, Jongdae can hear them, the hearts that stop beating, the bullets that drive so easily through flesh and bones, and the pained moans, the quiet sobs. With whatever happened to Sehun, Jongdae is sure the latter can hear them too, but as he meets the dark eyes again, Sehun doesn't even flinch nor show any concern. He would have been as horrified as Jongdae before. He would have been the first fighting his way through the blood bath to try and stop it. 

“ _You_ don't understand,” Jongdae hisses between gritted teeth. “Maybe you never even did. It's not about –”

“Revenge?” Sehun groans. “No, it's about _humanity_ and doing what's right to protect –”

Both Sehun and Jongdae freeze at the same time. This is Jongdae's proof that Sehun's hearing has indeed been improved, because the sudden tension taking over his body, muscle by muscle, leaves no room for imagination. They both heard the heavy soles getting closer. 

“What?” Dahye asks, confused, and Sehun gestures her to keep quiet. 

Jongdae and Sehun exchange a glance, and Dahye, immediately understanding what is going on, steps further into the darkness. Jongdae presses his back against the container's side, wincing at the low creaking sounds his costume makes. Sehun follows suit, and his shoulder bumps against Jongdae. The latter turns his head towards him while Sehun pulls away. Their eyes meet, and Sehun's irises harden. He drowns Jongdae in a patronizing glare and nods sharply towards the corner of the container. Jongdae draws back his focus on the shoes and the erratic breathing getting closer, a lump falling deep into his throat. 

He feels, more than he sees, Sehun's hand slip down to the leather holster wrapped around his thigh. Jongdae holds his breath as the foreign heart beat gets closer and closer. He shuts his eyes. Just a few more steps, a few inches... He can now smell a hint of gunpowder, of sweat and the unmistakable thickness that comes with fear and tension. Whoever it is, they're tall, their shoes vibrating harder on the concrete than Dahye's or even Jongdae's, and they're holding a gun. Jongdae can hear the mechanics click with every step they're taking. His own body tenses, tighter and tighter, until he hears it; the light brushing sound of a finger hovering over a trigger. That's when he pounces out of his hiding spot. 

His hands close on a jacket, and he hears the fabric crack as he pulls the man closer. He throws him against the container's side, right where he was a heartbeat earlier, and the man yelps. He raises his hands, his gun bouncing against his side, and lets out another moan when Sehun swoops down on him, perfectly synchronized with Jongdae. His body blocks the mercenary against the container and follows its curves as Sehun presses himself against the man, one of his blade already glistening against the man's Adam's apple. Jongdae sees it bob down as the man raises his hands higher, fingers shaking. 

“I – I mean no harm!” the mercenary stutters. 

Sehun's eyes curl up, probably matching a grin that the mask on the lower half of his face hides, and the tip of his blade follows the soft bump of the man's Adam's apple. 

“Oh my God, are you fucking kidding me,” Dahye groans. 

She steps closer and snatches the military cap from the man, thus freeing glaring red locks. Jongdae's heart jumps up in his throat. He grabs the man's sunglasses and throws them away before looking back and meeting Chanyeol's signature round eyes looking at him with a – well deserved – hint of fear. Sehun snorts. 

“Wrong place again,” he snarls. 

“Don't,” Dahye groans. She grabs Sehun by the arm and pulls him away. He slides his blade back into his holster, glances at Jongdae, and steps away from him. 

“It's the second time you try to kill me,” Chanyeol says, glaring at Sehun and rubbing his throat. 

“Nothing personal,” Sehun shrugs. 

“What are you doing here?” Dahye says.

Chanyeol throws her a half surprised, half impressed look, and Jongdae winces. It was pretty obvious Chanyeol had guessed too much back in his hospital room earlier today, but pretending like they didn't know him still would have been a good idea. Now that Dahye pretty much confirmed his guess, he looks as intimidated as proud to have been right. His eyes take in Dahye's long cape, the dark vinyl of her costume and the French braid falling on her shoulder, and when he looks up to her, barely hiding his amazement for her mask, she clears his throat. He has to blink a few times before he remembers her question. 

“I want to help,” he says, defying. He glances at Jongdae and decides to keep looking at him instead of Dahye, whose anger is obviously too tangible, too threatening. “I live here. Plus everyone in Port Ville needs to know what's happening and I know better than to trust the government to tell the story.”

Sehun snorts, but when Jongdae glances at him, there's no disdain or patronizing coldness in his eyes. They're already glued to Jongdae, and instead a strong and steel-like triumphant thickness is filling them. There's a challenge in his gaze, one that Jongdae can read easily. It was only a few hours ago after all, that Sehun pressed another blade against Chanyeol's throat, and that his voice introduced him to Jongdae. _Chanyeol is one of the too few people money can't buy in this god-forsaken place. Chanyeol cares._ Now, Sehun is looking at Jongdae like he was right, like he's been right about everything, and for some reasons, it just angers Jongdae so much. 

“Don't look at me like that,” he hisses. “Thorne being free is completely your fault, remember? This whole mess is on you.”

This efficiently wipes the superior look off Sehun's face, and for a short second, something from another time paints his features. 

“I've never wanted any innocent people to die,” he says. “And you, more than anyone else, should know it.” 

Sehun's last few words knock the air out of Jongdae's lungs. He watches, taken aback, as the man in front of him holds his gaze. He's everything the Sehun Jongdae used to know wasn't; he's deathly, cold and unforgiving but despite it all, he looks so much like the boy he once was right now. His words have filled the gap between past and present, and the dangerous silhouette facing Jongdae has been inevitably linked to the boy who used to laugh in the dead of the night. The boy who, indeed, would have died to save some innocent lives. Hell, he _did_. 

“Is there – is there somewhere safe you can stay in?” Dahye asks Chanyeol. Jongdae doesn't miss her look towards Sehun or how her hand slides closer to the latter, longing, itching. It hurts when Sehun doesn't step away. “You said you still live here. Where exactly?”

Chanyeol opens his mouth, but immediately shuts it. Something flashes through his eyes, and he straightens with a nod. 

“There's a safe place, not far from here. I can take you there.”

Jongdae frowns, his attention drawn away from Dahye's new set of angry eyes and Chanyeol's gulping response by a hint of buzzing. He grabs Chanyeol by the nape and pulls him down before shoving his fingers in his ear. He pulls out a black earpiece that vibrates quietly against his palm. 

“Are you part of Lexie's crew?” he asks Chanyeol, confused. 

Chanyeol shrugs as he puts his hands on the gun still dangling off his shoulder. 

“I just had to say I wanted to work. They don't give a fuck who dies for them. They gave me a gun, an earpiece, and pushed me on the boat.”

“You're crazy,” Dahye whispers as she takes in Chanyeol with disbelief. “Man, you do not want to mess with Lexie Wright. Stay away from her in the future.”

Chanyeol gives another shrug that has Sehun grinning harder under his mask. Jongdae and Dahye exchange a glance. He reads amusement in her eyes, despair, and a very light hint of admiration. Nothing that Jongdae feels. The earpiece is warm against his palm, but quiet, and its silence is overwhelming now that the gunfire have stopped on the docks behind them. He hears people talking, he hears soles and heartbeats, but he doesn't even want to take a look to know whose side won. It's too easy to picture the blood following the concrete's little bumps before dripping into the dark ocean waters. They need to find the hostages fast, so the PVPD can enter the island, and prevent any more blood baths, and having to take Chanyeol to safety is a huge loss of time. 

Jongdae closes his fist on the earpiece, the device breaking under his strength. 

“Let's go,” he says. “You go first Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol nods, then takes the lead, straight into the darkness. Dahye hastily joins him, a hand hovering over her belt, just in case. Jongdae tilts his palm and watches the earpiece falls on the ground. It has stopped buzzing, but the radio frequency it was humming still lurks in the air around him. At least he knows which side got the upper hand now. He briefly wonders, as he sets off after Dahye and Chanyeol, if Lexie had planned this sudden attack, if she knew Thorne had his men waiting for her. His thought dies away when he spots Sehun stepping away from him again and his insides squirm. He hears Sehun's slow heartbeat, the ruffling of his clothes, he can taste the familiar scent on the tip of his tongue mixed with the saltiness of the air, and it takes all his will to focus on their surroundings rather than Sehun's blood rushing through his veins. 

Jongdae gets vertigo from trying to wrap his head around the fact that Sehun is here again, but in a very different way. He can feel his own mind splitting up, torn apart by the mourning he's been doing for the past five years and the relief of hearing Sehun's heart beat again, because in spite of it, he can't deny the grave is still there. He's just not sure about what's lying in it, what he has lost. 

He glances at Sehun, who gives himself away by immediately looking away. 

Or what they _both_ lost.

 

 

“It's here,” Chanyeol says, pointing at a shabby looking house across the street. 

Jongdae throws another cautious glance over his shoulder, at the dark alley keeping them away from the street lights, safe from any possible evil eyes. He draws back his attention on the empty street and the house Chanyeol pointed at. It's one of the many houses aligned in rows, similar from the small patch of lawn to the slightly asymmetrical windows. The only differences lay in the lack of curtains and light shimmering low on the inside. Jongdae catches so many things - so many voices and buzzing sounds, so many waves and raged whispers – that his senses have proven basically useless on their way here. It could have been a short fifteen-minute walk, but with his inability to sense anything, it took them thirty minutes. Luckily though, the streets have revealed to be quite empty until then. They're still on the edges of the island. Jongdae reckons the fight probably rages on in the centre. 

Distant explosions break the fragile silence around them, and they all look on their right, as though it could tell them what's happening. There's a tangible feeling of habit lingering in the air here, something that Jongdae sadly links to the years of crime that have reigned over the Bottoms. People here know better than to go out for a stroll after the sun has dipped down under the horizon. Thorne taking over the island probably didn't cause as much panic here as it did back on the land. Doors are double-locked and families are gathered away from the windows. Jongdae hears a little girl throws a dice before a pawn is moved on a board. _Free parking! I get the money!_

“What are we waiting for?” Sehun hisses. 

Jongdae blinks, snatching his conscience away from the ruffling of phoney banknotes. He realizes Chanyeol still has his hand raised towards the house, although the curve of his index finger isn't as optimistic and pleased as it was at first. His eyes are glued on the right, towards the explosions, and the paleness of his face stands out even in the darkness of the alley. Sehun grabs his wrist and pulls it down quite aggressively. 

“We have more important things to do than babysit you,” he says. “So let's get this done.”

He steps out of the alley, which makes Dahye hiss. She reaches out, but her fingers close on thin air as Sehun is already trotting across the road. 

“Se -” she starts before interrupting herself and throwing a wary look at Chanyeol. 

“There's no one here!” Sehun calls out, as he hops on the pavement on the other side of the road. 

He opens his arms wide on each side and turns on himself to prove his point. The family next door keeps playing Monopoly, although Jongdae catches a certain tension in the mother's voice that wasn't there before. He sighs and gestures at Dahye and Chanyeol to remain hidden before stepping out himself. He looks on his right, tries to pierce the darkness, to see further than the regular pools of light thrown on the concrete by the street lights, and does exactly the same on his left. He looks up to the roofs, squints at every dark alley, every corner, all the while feeling Sehun's eyes on him. His heart is a constant rhythm in the flow of information Jongdae receives every second. 

“You don't trust me?” Sehun asks. 

He's sitting on the low wall running along the pavement and separating the houses from the street, his long legs folded under him. Even from this distance, Jongdae spots the familiar curling of his eyes, and he immediately pictures the smile that goes with it. His heart leaps in his throat, and he quickly looks away.

“It's clear,” he tells Dahye. 

She grabs Chanyeol by the arm and pulls him out of the alley. She looks so small next to him, which makes the way he staggers under her pull even funnier.

“There's a door on the right,” Chanyeol says when they all reach Sehun. “I have the key.” 

He fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a set of keys clicking and shining under the harsh lights. Jongdae holds back a remark about how Chanyeol really shouldn't take the key of his house with him if he goes undercover because he doesn't want to make him think it's something he could do again. He must admit Chanyeol's determination is something he has to be admired for, but it unfortunately seems to go hand in hand with a misplaced naivety – which is even stranger from someone who writes such fiery, but true, articles. 

Chanyeol leads them into the darkness on the side of the house, and indeed, Jongdae spots an old-looking door a few steps ahead, at the foot of a staircase. Chanyeol is the first to engage in it, the steps creaking under his shoes, immediately followed by Jongdae, Dahye and Sehun. Something clicks, and Jongdae mindlessly glances at the keys in Chanyeol's hand before he realizes it was actually a very different sort of click. 

“Stop,” he breathes out as his fingers curl around Chanyeol's biceps, stopping from unlocking the door. “There's someone inside.”

Chanyeol throws him a confused look. He nods. 

“I know.” 

“What do you mean you -” 

Chanyeol pulls away, pushes the key into the hole and turns it. The door unlocks and Chanyeol makes to step inside but Jongdae reaches out and grabs his arm. He pulls him back again and slides inside the room instead. 

“Wait -” Chanyeol objects. 

“Shut your cake hole, Park,” Sehun snarls somewhere at the back. 

Jongdae stands at the entrance of what looks like an equipped basement. Two bare light bulbs hang from the ceiling, their pale halo of light throwing a sickish glow over the furniture filling the room. Jongdae's eyes slide on a large desk bending under the weight of three computer screens and other devices that require so many wires that the wood of the desk can hardly be seen. There's a couch in the corner, and high piles of boxes standing out in the shadows. Jongdae dismisses a wobbly table and the mess spread over it in favour of a specific corner. He steps further into the room, his eyes glued to the barely visible outline in the darkest spot of the room. The too weak light doesn't reach this far, but as something ruffles and shifts, Jongdae still catches a faint glimmer against a cold metallic surface. He braces himself. 

“I know you're here,” he says. 

Someone moves behind him – probably Chanyeol – but no one speaks out. Jongdae silently thanks Dahye who is probably making sure the reporter keeps quiet. Ahead of him, the shadow seems to hesitate for a short second, before it slightly deflates. It's fleeting though, because when it finally unfolds and stands up straight, Jongdae easily picks up the tension in the body walking into the light. Soft skin and taut muscles reveal themselves as two veiny hands aim at Jongdae, long fingers tightly secured around a Beretta. Dark smart brown eyes glimmering behind framed spectacles take him in, and Jongdae sees them open wide. The man shifts from an offensive position to one of sheer surprise as he raises his head and gasps at Jongdae. 

“Alpha?” 

His voice is low, nasal with something soft and almost shy lurking in it. Despite the gun he's still holding, it makes the man looks much younger than his height suggested at first. 

“This is Kim Jongin, my roommate,” Chanyeol's voice says. He pauses, then continues. “He's a cop.”

Jongdae glances over his shoulder as Dahye pushes Chanyeol into the room, before entering herself. Sehun is the last one to step inside. He closes the door almost softly then throws a curious look around him, completely indifferent to what is going on. 

“Chanyeol?” said Kim Jongin stutters, mouth agape. His eyes go from Jongdae to Dahye and back again, still opening wider and wider with every second. He's definitely younger than Chanyeol, Jongdae concludes. 

Dahye steps closer and eyes Jongin. Her gaze turns sharp and she looks back at Chanyeol, shaking her head. 

“No he's not,” she snaps. “He's still at the academy.”

“Wh – what? How does she know?”

Chanyeol narrows his eyes at Dahye in a wordless provocation. “Because she saw you there, duh,” he says without blinking away. “She probably gave a conference or something like that.”

Jongin watches Dahye with eyes now so wide they look like they might fall off their sockets. 

“You... You're a cop?!” 

Dahye eyes him for a few more seconds before she turns back to Chanyeol and hits him on the back of his head. He winces and rubs the sore spot, his expression somewhere between a pout and a triumphant grin. 

“I know it because you look like you're twelve,” she tells Jongin. “And toddlers aren't allowed to play with guns.” 

Jongin blushes at her remark. He hastily puts his gun in his belt, against the small of his back. Dahye exaggerated, because Jongdae can easily spots taut muscles under the loose white shirt Jongin is wearing, and he's pretty sure a toddler wouldn't be that tall. He doesn't look as tall as Chanyeol, but something about his slender body and his straight long legs make him look more imposing. One thing is for sure though, he may be friends with Chanyeol and be freaking tall like the latter, he doesn't have the same bite and challenging gleam in his eyes. It's quite the contrary actually. It takes Jongdae less than a couple of seconds to identify the pinkish blush and the numerous glances as shyness. It takes him a bit longer to realize admiration is also blooming on Jongin's face whenever his eyes fall on Dahye. (And they do it quite often.) 

“What the hell is this place?” Sehun's blank voice says somewhere in the back. 

Jongdae turns around only to see that the latter has moved closer to the table he so easily dismissed earlier. He is now holding an oddly familiar ball between his fingers, the metallic surface clashing with the black of Sehun's gloves. He weighs it up in his palm and looks up at Chanyeol and Jongin, eyes curling up with mirth. 

“What are you?” he says, his voice loud and clear despite the mask still covering his mouth. “Fanboys or something?”

He throws the ball to Dahye, and Jongdae only realizes why it looked so familiar in the first place. Dahye's dark purple fingers close on it, and this is a sight he's seen dozens of times already. The only question left now is why do Chanyeol and Jongin have some of Dahye's smoke bombs in their basement? 

Jongin rushes to Dahye's side, but he stops dead in his tracks when he enters her personal space. He glances at her, the blush on his face thickening, and shyly holds out his hand. 

“It's just a prototype,” he mumbles. “Can I – can I have it back?” 

Dahye gives him back the bomb with a confused look, and Jongin quietly thanks her. Jongdae draws back his attention on the table, that Sehun is now looking closely, the same eye smile plastered on his face. He shoves a hand into a box left there and Jongdae's ears fill with metallic clinking sounds. Intrigued, he steps closer and peeks inside the box as well just as Sehun pulls out another ball, this one tainted with the same dark purple shade covering Dahye's cape, gloves and mask. He looks at Jongdae in the eyes, obviously amused, and turns back his attention on Jongin and Chanyeol. Jongdae takes in the mess covering the table, the half metallic spheres, the wielding machine and the numerous printed circuit boards, mouth agape. 

“Please don't – don't touch,” Jongin begs, biting his lower lip. “Most of them are very unstable...” 

Sehun interrupts him with another chuckle as he pulls out a set of blades from the box. They have obviously been inspired by the ones Jongdae and Dahye wear on their belts as they are the same size. Those ones are dark purple tainted though, and they sport protuberances like wings which definitely echo to the bird-like look of Dahye's mask. Sehun plays with one of them between his fingers before throwing it towards the wall in the back. Jongdae follows its trajectory, the whistling sound it makes almost musical before it drives into the wall with a low thud. 

“They're well balanced,” Sehun says. He turns towards Dahye, now grinning so widely the mask on his face is rising to his cheekbones. “You've been quite the muse, Heize.”

Dahye watches the gear spread over the table, impressed. 

“Hey look at that,” Sehun snickers. He pulls out a mask from the box which, from the lack of colour and the traces left by different tools on its surface, is obviously still under construction, and throws it at Jongdae who catches it mid-air. 

It doesn't need to be purple for Jongdae to guess it has been made for Dahye – for Heize, because it has the same sharp bird look her current mask has, only more advanced, more obvious. Jongdae looks up at Sehun and smiles. 

“It's pretty dope,” he says and Sehun nods, chuckling. 

He glances at Dahye who looks mildly embarrassed, but it's nothing compared to the burning shade of red now covering Jongin's full face, and even gnawing at the pinkness of his lips. Chanyeol steps up, his brows deeply furrowed and his eyes shooting daggers at Sehun and Jongdae. 

“Don't laugh at him,” he hisses between gritted teeth. 

He snatches the mask from Jongdae's hand and puts it back inside the box which he grabs and carefully puts away from Sehun's mischievous eyes. Jongdae and Sehun exchange an amused glance, a look they've shared so many times before and which comes so naturally that none of them question. Something flutters in Jongdae's chest. His eyes instinctively fall on Dahye, and warmth spread over him when he catches her smile, similar to the one he and Sehun are wearing. 

“You're still smiling,” Chanyeol groans. “Be nice or we won't help you.”

This immediately wipes the grin off Sehun's face. He raises a judging eyebrow at Chanyeol. 

“Help _us_?” he repeats. “Uh, last time I checked you were the one that needed bodyguards.”

A red light suddenly flashes in Jongdae's mind as he takes in Chanyeol's grin, and he frowns. On his right, Dahye throws the same wary look at the reporter, confirming Jongdae's fears. 

“What is it again, Park?” she sighs. 

Chanyeol and Jongin exchange a look. They may not have the lethal vibe that Baekhyun and Lexie have, but they obviously share a profound bound created by years of friendship too. Once again, despite all the power sleeping in his DNA, Jongdae feels like he's been cornered and played on. It has happened way too often for his liking. 

“Jongin... Jongin can help you find the hostages,” Chanyeol says. 

Jongdae looks at Jongin who nods but quickly stops under Jongdae's eyes. 

“You think we can't?” Jongdae says. He narrows his eyes at Chanyeol and closes his face. “You think we came here with no plan at all? That we can't save those people?”

Chanyeol has at least the common sense to look slightly afraid. His triumphant self-confidence melts down, and he seems to shrivel under Jongdae's eyes, to the latter's delight. 

“Of course not,” Jongin butts in. His whole body twitches when Jongdae draws his attention on him as though about to bow down, but he keeps his head high despite the blush creeping on his face again. “He just meant... I can do it in like, five minutes. So that would be quite a gain of time, wouldn't it?” 

Jongdae knows, he just _does_ , that both Jongin and Chanyeol have a bargain in mind, but he also knows that if Jongin can really live up to his words, five minutes would definitely be better than at least one hour running through the Bottoms. It could help them save more people, and the PVPD would be able to enter the Bottoms much faster. Thorne would be the only thing left on their list to cross. Port Ville could wake up in the morning with this new gang war already nothing more than a nightmare. Jongdae can't say he's not tempted, and both Jongin and Chanyeol look at him like they know, their faces hopeful and their eyes glistening with excitement. It echoes with an old memory of two kids knocking on his door, the same misplaced hope on their faces. 

_Hello. We know you're Alpha, and we want to help you._

Jongdae shakes himself out of the memories, a light smile threatening to break the angry face he's still flashing at Chanyeol and Jongin. He looks at Dahye, meaning to ask her, but Chanyeol, probably taking his gesture for an opening window, rushes in and speaks again. 

“You know, Thorne is probably with the hostages, so it could all be over so soon.”

“Do it.” 

Jongdae's heart misses a beat. He looks over at Sehun whose eyes look like two bottomless holes. The softness that had been hinted by his smiles earlier is long gone, and he now looks sharper than ever. He's cold again, dangerous and lethal, and he doesn't blink, his irises blown and fixed on Jongin. He stands in the middle of the room, scary, angry and so different. 

“Do it,” Sehun repeats, almost hisses. There's an underlying threat in his intonations, one that Jongin doesn't miss, because he throws a confused glance at Dahye. 

“Listen -” she starts, but Sehun shuts her with a burning glare. 

“We find the hostages, we find Thorne,” Sehun says. He slightly winces, tilts his head on the side, and a frozen hand closes around Jongdae's heart. “ _I know_ ,” Sehun whispers. “I won't make the same mistake twice.” 

Jongdae feels so small, so helpless and useless. Sehun snickers under his mask, a distant look in his eyes, and Jongdae's conscience rushes to him. He can hear Sehun's hair rubbing against his hood, the low thud of his lashes when he blinks, the wet sound when he gulps down, but nothing else. Frustration grows in his chest, almost painful, and Jongdae's fingers twitch on thin air in response. If only he could touch Sehun and _know_ , maybe he could make it better, maybe - 

Sehun seems to snap out of his inner conversation with the madness creeping in his eyes, and his gaze falls on Jongdae's fingers. He looks up at the latter, icy rage taking over his irises, and steps away. 

“How would you do it?” Dahye asks, her voice weak and unsure. She doesn't falter when Jongin draws his attention on her though, and the confusion and fear leave Jongin's face. 

“Well,” he hesitates. “I kind of... already did?”

Jongdae's conscience is wrapped around Sehun, so tightly, that it takes him all his will to manage a glance towards Jongin. Thankfully, Dahye is much more attentive, so she reacts before him. Jongdae is too caught with meeting Sehun's furious eyes anyway. They're burning with the same intensity as blue flames, and piercing Jongdae's skin mercilessly. 

“You did?” Dahye repeats, mouth agape. 

Chanyeol shrugs, his triumphant lopsided smile making his grand return on his lips. 

“He's very smart,” he brags. 

“Where is he?” Sehun butts in with a snarl. He takes a first step towards Jongin. 

Jongdae feels Sehun's muscles tense as though they were his, he feels the shoot of adrenaline, the burning bite of anger, and it makes his heart leap into his throat as panic swoops down on him. He refuses to let Sehun face Thorne again so he steps up and gets between him and that monster. 

“What did you do?” he asks Jongin. He feels Sehun's eyes shooting daggers at him but he doesn't flinch. 

Jongin glances at Chanyeol, and only breathes in when the latter flashes him a quick nod. 

“Well... I... uh. I hacked into the Aldrin Enterprise satellite and used its images to know where Thorne has gathered most of his men. I reckoned the hostages would probably be watched closely...” 

“Where is it?” Sehun barks. 

The burst of his voice is followed by another low mumble that Jongdae doesn't catch. His senses tighten around Sehun, but he keeps his eyes on Jongin and Chanyeol. Aldrin Enterprise reigns over Port Ville with high towers and fancy security systems, and Mr. Aldrin himself, billionaire and amateur of French wines, is quite the paranoiac stereotype of men with huge bank accounts. His satellite, just like every one of his installations, is probably more protected than the President's office, so the chances that Jongin really did hack it are very low. There's something about the shy and embarrassed blush on Jongin's cheeks though, about the computers purring in the back, or the circuit boards, the tools and the wires filling the room. Something that, mixed with the pride filling Chanyeol's eyes and the smirk he's sporting, makes the whole thing much more believable. Chanyeol was the one who brought them here after all, and Jongdae is willing to admit that, despite being very difficult to shake off, Chanyeol doesn't strike as the manipulative type. He couldn't have known he'll end up bringing them to his stupid lair and his apparently very smart roommate. Jongin couldn't have known as well, so how could they have prepared a lie like this? 

This is exactly what is wrong with this whole thing, Jongdae realizes. He narrows his eyes at Jongin. 

“You didn't know we were coming,” he states, to which Jongin erratically nods, determined on cleaning himself from any troubles. “So why did you hack the satellite?” 

Both Chanyeol dropping his smiles, and Jongin gulping then glancing at the box of Heize gadget replicas give Jongdae his answer. 

“You wanted to go on your own,” he says. He glances at Dahye, who is watching both Chanyeol and Jongin like she can't believe her eyes. Once again though, Jongin and Chanyeol's silences are pretty revealing, and Jongdae shakes his head. “I can't believe it,” he sighs with disbelief. 

That seems to trigger something in Jongin, and he loses his shyness for a more challenging look, one that almost overpowers the blush deepening on his cheeks. 

“I'd think you, more than anyone else, would understand exactly why we were planning to do so,” he says between gritted teeth. “You may have given up after whatever happened five years ago, but we didn't, _I_ didn't. I've spent most of my teen days admiring you two, to the point that I would spend hours in our garage trying to reproduce your gadgets, and then you disappeared. The bad guys, they didn't. And now they're attacking _my_ home again and I won't let them push another tragedy down our throats.” 

Jongdae watches, frozen, as Jongin points an angry finger at him, his brows knitted with anger. 

“I will give you the address, but in exchange you'll have to let Chanyeol and I help. That is not arguable.”

Jongin adjusts his spectacles on his nose, his irises throwing a fire that surprises even Chanyeol, whose eyes bulge out as he takes in his roommate. The throbbing pain is back in Jongdae's head, the headache more powerful this time and it makes him feel so weary and worn out. He feels like he's had this talk a hundred of times already, and he doesn't even find the strength to argue. He draws back his attention on Dahye but before he can tell her anything, Sehun chuckles. It's shallow, and everything but amused. The headache lashes out against Jongdae's temples as he glances at Sehun, his heart turning to lead in his chest. 

“I can't believe you're not giving him the ' _it's too dangerous and you're not prepared for it_ ' speech,” Sehun sniggers. He tilts his head to look at Jongin and Chanyeol before drawing back his attention on Jongdae. “Who cares anyway, let the kid chose what he wants to die for.” 

“Let's not do this right now, please,” Jongdae says in a low voice. 

Sehun shrugs, and something flashes in his eyes. Jongdae thinks he catches regrets, disappointment, and something more, but Sehun turns his head and flashes him his side view before he can dwell on it. Once again, Jongdae feels himself reaching out, his whole body answering to a quiet need, until he can taste the slight smell of leather coming from Sehun's jacket on the back of his tongue. 

“Jongdae...” Dahye says in a breathless whisper, syllables barely articulated and her voice so low that Jongin and Chanyeol easily miss it. 

Jongdae draws his attention on her, and the sight of her almond-shaped eyes glued to him makes him feel somewhat better. She's someone else under that cape, she has another name, another mission, but she always lays the same eyes on him. They're soft, warm and safe, so safe as they take him in, Dahye's thoughts on full display for him. She reaches out, her fingers curling in thin air as though she was already holding his hand, and Jongdae imitates her gesture. His power rushes to his fingertips, buzzes, crackles in his head, and when he closes his hand around Dahye's, it immediately runs through her ending nerves, straight to her brain. 

Her inner voice fills Jongdae's mind in broken sentences that make no sense, except that they do, because he knows how she thinks, how her mind works. From the inside, she's all sparks and bluish luminescence, and she's out of time. Seconds stop as she reveals herself to him, welcomes him deeper into her head so that they can safely talk without anyone butting in. Jongdae unfolds her thoughts one by one, her logic and every reasoning literally waiting to be picked up in his palms. He watches details she picked up in the room – and that he also saw. The computers, the display of technology, even the plans and scribbled notes tacked to the wall. Then it jumps to Chanyeol and his red flaming hair, Chanyeol who doesn't give up, whether it's in his articles or in real life, and that also, Jongdae cannot argue. Jongin is the next one to come into focus, with his spectacles perched on the tip of his nose, the Beretta he's still wearing in his belt and the gadgets he built himself. _They wouldn't take no for an answer_ , her synapses are telling Jongdae, and he agrees. He disagrees to what she offers next though, but she's just as used as him to have Jongdae wandering in her head, and she responses with a strong push, and her mental version of _don't be so stubborn Jongdae_. He withdraws with her wordless remonstrance playing in his head, and she flashes him a short-lived smile. She won and of course, she knows it. 

The basement emerges again in Jongdae's eyes. He looks down at his fingers closing on emptiness and breathes in deeply. He picks up an unusual acceleration in Sehun's heartbeat, and when he looks at the latter, Sehun immediately blinks away. Jongdae sighs before drawing back his attention on Jongin and Chanyeol. 

“You stay away from Thorne,” he says. Jongin and Chanyeol both straighten up, so ridiculously in synchronization that Jongdae immediately regrets giving in to Dahye. They look like kids at Christmas, and god knows he's not sending them to some nicely wrapped gifts. “Just focus on taking any endangered civilians to somewhere safe, okay? No fighting.” 

Sehun snorts, and Dahye frowns at him over her shoulder, which successfully keeps Sehun quiet. 

“And Heize will come with you.” 

Jongin freezes, as pure, bubbly glee takes over his face. He goes from the brightest expression to the reddest face when Chanyeol sends him an amused smile. Jongdae can't believe he's agreed to this. 

“Now, give us the address.”

 

 

 

Dahye puts three earpieces in Jongdae's palm, and the latter looks up to two faces bright with expectation and excitement. Chanyeol and Jongin have both geared up following Dahye's enthusiast orders, and their pockets are now full of Jongin's gadgets and smoke bombs she gave them. She made Chanyeol wear one of his facial masks ( _Of course I know you put on a mask when you want to go incognito, I'm a_ cop _Park_.) and ended up giving Jongin the Heize mask he created – which made Jongin's eyes shine so bright it was almost blinding. Jongdae watches those two men, more like boys in his eyes, that he didn't know yesterday, and he can't think of one single reason why he shouldn't be worried. Chanyeol keeps fiddling with his hood – which Dahye pulled up to hide the flaming red locks – and Jongdae knows for a fact that it can be quite confusing at first to have something cutting the edges of your vision. Jongin may be a future cop, the Beretta he's kept doesn't mean he's cut out to face a gang war on his own. Jongdae has so many bad feelings about this, obviously unlike Dahye who can’t stop grinning. It's too late to back out now, anyway. 

Jongdae lets out a sigh as Chanyeol adjusts his hood for the umpteenth time with a shake of his head. He lowers his eyes at the earpieces as Sehun chuckles on his right. 

“The secret is to turn your head completely instead of just, you know, glancing,” Sehun says. Chanyeol looks up at him, his face a mix between gratefulness and wariness. “I like your style,” Sehun adds, his smile hidden beneath his own mask and the rest of his face merging in with the shadow of his hood. 

Jongdae tries not to roll his eyes as Chanyeol smiles proudly, his eyes curling up and his chest sticking out. He draws back his focus on the earpieces and lashes out his power against the tiny devices. He knows exactly what waves he needs to reproduce – the ones currently buzzing in his and Dahye's ears – so it takes him only a few seconds to sew them all over the earpieces. He gives them a little push, throws a little jolt of electricity at them, and the waves start undulating in the air as the earpieces turn on in unison. 

Jongdae looks up and nods at Dahye, who takes back the devices. She gives one to Chanyeol then one to Jongin. She stops before Sehun who raises an eyebrow at her. He was very quiet while she was taking care of Chanyeol and Jongin, if not for the broken whispers he mumbled in the dark corner of the room he had withdrawn to - mumbles that Jongdae caught, and that he wishes he didn't. ( _Soon_ , Sehun had breathed out with a low, low chuckle. _I know, I know... I've been waiting for so long..._ ) 

“Don't be stupid,” Dahye says, with the exact same voice she’s always thrown at Sehun when she told him off before. “You're taking one too.”

Sehun makes a face, but Dahye's eyes glued to his are enough of a threat for him to take the last earpiece. He reluctantly puts it in his ear, his eyes falling on Jongdae for a short second before he blinks away. Jongdae doesn't. He watches, sucked in, every little details, from the game of shadows sculpting Sehun's face to the way his fingers hover over the blades pressed tight against his thigh thanks to the holster. He doesn't miss it when Sehun grits his teeth after adjusting his hood over his ear, his jaw rolling under the mask. Neither does he miss the low whisper that comes almost right away. 

“Stop that,” Sehun says in a breath. “I can feel you all over myself.”

Jongdae gives a start as his conscience immediately rushes back to his mind, tainting his cheeks with a light pink that mortifies him. He glances at Sehun, just in time to catch a faint eye smile before Sehun straightens and his face merges with the darkness of his hood again. 

“Okay,” Dahye says. “I guess we should go now.”

Jongdae makes a face as Sehun immediately whirls on his heels and rushes to the door. Dahye gestures at Chanyeol and Jongin to follow him, her eyes reduced to slits with how wide she is grinning. Jongin obeys but Chanyeol pauses after a first step, his lips curling into a thinking pout. 

“What is it, gossip girl?” Dahye says in a teasing voice. 

Chanyeol glances at her, but it's the soft touch she lays on the small of his back that has him moving forward. Her palm remains in the air for a short second before she draws her attention on Jongdae. 

“Are you sure about this?” he asks her while Chanyeol groans about his hood outside, to the sound of Sehun's snorts.

“It's an island, Dae,” she answers seriously, her grin wiped off her face. “And it's a gang war. There's only three of us. We need help.” 

Jongdae's heart leaps into his throat at how easily she includes Sehun in her calculation. Probably aware of what he's thinking, she flashes him a light smile and pats him softly on the arm before turning on her heels and stepping out of the basement. Jongdae follows her, forcing himself to focus on their surroundings again. His senses instinctively reach out to the house across the street but the Monopoly game seems to be over. He glances around him, only to have his eyes crash on dirty walls and closed shutters. The air is heavy with tension, something that Sehun, who's now perched up the railing leading to the basement door, doesn't seem concerned about. Instead, he snickers at Chanyeol, who keeps groaning at his too large hood, his body gracefully shifting from one position to the other, his long legs unfolding swiftly. 

Dahye looks away from the street to grab Chanyeol's wrist as she clicks her tongue. 

“It's your hair, Park,” she groans. “Red isn't really discreet you know so suck it up and stop whining like a big baby.”

Chanyeol throws her a heartbroken glance as he sadly adjusts the hood on his head, his face sinking in the shadow cast on it. Jongin pats him on the arm with a tiny smile. He, at least, has the common sense to look nervous, slightly afraid, as he keeps glancing at the street. It's the determination shinning in his eyes though that scares Jongdae the most, especially when their eyes meet, and Jongin’s harden. 

“Listen, if you –” 

“We’ll be going that way,” Jongin cuts him. He points at the street on his left, the outline of the Heize mask silver against the streetlights. It makes his nose chiselled, sharper. “You two should go north, it’s the shortest way to Thorne’s HQ.” 

“We know exactly where to go, don’t worry,” Sehun says. He jumps of the rail and lands on the concrete silently, his body like water flowing quietly. Jongdae does feel the slight vibrations echoing against his soles though. “I grew up in the Bottoms, with your idol here.”

Both Chanyeol and Jongin turn to Dahye. 

“You’re friend with that psycho?” Chanyeol blurts out while Jongin gasps an amazed “You did?!” 

Sehun snorts, but the sound grazes Jongdae’s ear with a softness it didn’t have before. He breaks away from Dahye smiling at Jongin to glance at Sehun, whose dark eyes were already on him. 

“Let’s go,” he says in a whisper before gesturing with a nod at the houses behind him. 

Jongdae just nods, takes a first step before stopping and throwing a heavy _be careful_ at Dahye. She answers with a short nod and very serious eyes, and Jongdae draws back his attention at the street in front of him. He exchanges a glance with Sehun, and they dash off in perfect synchronization, like they used to. Jongdae may not have grown in the Bottoms like Sehun and Dahye did, he still has a fairly good knowledge of the place, due to countless of cases blooming or ending on the island, so he knows exactly the shortest way to the place Jongin gave them the address of. Sehun doesn’t ask either, and they run together to the other side of the street and to the big tree whose foliage is so thick it hides the house behind it. Jongdae jumps up to grab a branch on which he hauls himself almost immediately, while Sehun defies gravity by running up the trunk. When physics do catch up with him, his body bends, slides to a vertical position and his hands close on the closest branch. They both jump from the tree to the house’s roof together, landing with a mix of vibrations that reverberate particularly harshly against Jongdae’s ribcage. 

He looks down at Sehun, who landed with a knee on the tiles in a very feline position, while the latter looks up at him. 

“Wanna race?” he asks, his eyes curling up. 

Jongdae can’t do anything about the chuckle he lets out, just like he can’t stop himself from setting off immediately. The wind swoops down on him, hurls in his ears and bites his face with its still warm teeth as Jongdae runs as fast as he can, just like he used to when Sehun challenged him back then. Then he would slide into a halt, turn around and tease Sehun about how slow he was, how he’d better stop trying to win battles he’s already lost, and he would let go of the wind, the rush of adrenaline, the power and the speed to instead adjust his pace with Sehun’s. The second Jongdae slows down this time though, Sehun runs by him in a whiff. He looks at Jongdae over his shoulder, lets out his usual laugh and speeds up. He jumps off the roof and leaves Jongdae’s sight, and Jongdae never hears him land. He dives off the roof too. 

Sehun runs like a cheetah, he jumps like a feline and his body is all reflexes, strength and speed. Jongdae runs next to him like he’s always run, fast and quiet, and they exchange glances, competitive eye smiles like they’ve always done. They’re walking on a thin line, their shoulders merging with the past, with the love struck smiles and the childish challenges, but the rest of their bodies deeply attached to the current times, the present and the fact that Sehun can now keep up with Jongdae. It’s a fragile balance, almost impossible to maintain, but as Jongdae looks over at Sehun while they climb the side of a three-floor building, he realizes how synchronized they are, like shadows of the same object. 

Sehun probably feels Jongdae’s eyes on him because he looks at him as they run across the roof, and for a fleeting, very crazy second, Jongdae thinks it would be okay to reach out and take his hand. He thinks that in that special balance, in this tiny piece of the puzzle that is the universe, they’ve found the perfect middle for them. So who cares if Sehun is mostly friendly to Dahye? Who cares if he’s now sharp and lethal? In that tiny comfortable point in the continuum space time, it would be okay. Jongdae’s heart leaps up into his throat as Sehun suddenly forks and comes straight at him. And it crashes back against his ribcage when Sehun violently tackles him. The line is definitely broken as they both lose their balance and topple over. Their speed has them rolling on the roof over several feet until the low wall running along the border stops them. Jongdae moans as his head hits the edge with a shock violent enough for the concrete to crack. Next to him, Sehun groans as he snaps his left wrist back in place. 

“Why would you do that,” Jongdae glares at him as the pain in his body slowly fades away. 

Sehun opens his mouth, but his eyes land on his own leg thrown over Jongdae’s lap, and he sits up with a jolt, his heart immediately speeding up. He whirls around, literally throws himself on the side and grips the concrete to crawl away from the human knot he and Jongdae had become. There’s no balance anymore, no more unison, and Jongdae is suddenly hyper aware of his body and how it longs for Sehun while the latter kneels down behind the low wall as far as possible from Jongdae. 

“Didn’t you hear them?” Sehun tells him as he purposely avoids Jongdae’s eyes.

Jongdae considers screaming at Sehun for a short second, and just grabbing him and maybe hitting him, but the sound of voices, and everything that usually comes with vocal chords vibrating, reaches his ears. He glares at Sehun for good measure, even though the latter is still very intent on keeping his eyes on the dirty concrete, before putting a hand on the low wall and getting back up on his feet. He takes a quick peek at the street beneath them and makes a face. They have indeed reached Jongin’s address, and it’s pretty obvious that the kid was right about the place. The abandoned building, whose structure somehow looks as broken as its windows, is heavily guarded. There’s no light inside, and probably no electricity whatsoever, which reduces Jongdae’s visibility, but he can hear hearts beating and soles hitting the floor. There are sighs, voices mingling in a whispered conversation he can’t understand, and the now too familiar clicking of guns. 

Jongdae scrunches up his nose. He glances at Sehun and presses himself tighter against the low wall, careful not to stand out. In the chaos of regular heartbeats, he tries to pick up erratic ones, panicked rhythms that could belong to Thorne’s hostages, but there’s too much noise in the building and around him. He pushes as hard as he can, but all he gets is a scratching sound two blocks north and a burning peak of pain. He lowers behind the wall with a groan. 

“They’re inside,” Sehun tells him with a casual voice. 

Jongdae looks at him, slightly frowning. There’s an elephant in the room, a very huge and obvious one, and Jongdae is done crashing against its thick grey skin. There’s enough space and distance between him and Sehun as it is. 

“Can _you_ hear them?” he asks. 

Sehun throws him a surprised look. He watches Jongdae’s face, his irises as dark as the hood he’s wearing, and a plethora of things flashes through his eyes. Jongdae thinks he catches regret, sadness and the usual lurking madness, but also something softer, almost grateful. He expects Sehun to look away, but Sehun doesn’t. Instead, he just shakes his head. 

“My… my abilities aren’t as regular as yours. I have no control over them. I just thought – I just thought you heard them but maybe it’s too noisy or – I don’t know, if you’re tired or – ”

Sehun’s voice trails off, dropping with every word he says until Jongdae only catches a faint whisper, and he looks away, drawing back his attention on the abandoned squat, a darker shade spreading over the bits of his cheekbones left uncovered by the mask. Jongdae too looks away, his heart beating faster in his chest, and knowing that Sehun probably can pick it up doesn’t make it slow down at all. He breathes in deeply and clears his throat so that the words stuck in it would dissolve and let more air reach his lungs. 

“Heize,” Sehun suddenly says. “We’re there, and the kid was right. We’re going in, so it’ll be radio silence for a few. Is everything okay for you?”

Sehun throws Jongdae a fleeting glance and Jongdae holds it as Jongin snorts in their ears. 

“Of course I was right,” he mumbles. 

“We’re okay,” Dahye cuts him. Her voice sounds amused on the edges, but the radio frequency mostly carries the seriousness of her intonations. “Apparently there are a few people who took refuge in the school so we’re going there now.” She pauses. “Be careful, okay? Don’t let Thorne know you’re there, or he’ll press the detonator.”

Jongdae and Sehun exchange a glance. At the mention of Thorne’s name, Sehun’s eyes narrowed and his embarrassed, almost shy look disappeared. He’s now challenging and angry, so angry Jongdae can feel the tension radiates from his body. 

“We won’t,” he assures Dahye while still holding Sehun’s eyes, and the latter glares at him. “Talk to you soon.”

“Roger that,” she says, and Jongdae feels her get out of the frequency, leaving behind only statics and waves. 

“We’ll use the roof access,” he tells Sehun as he tries not to let the latter’s icy eyes throw him off. “No one has to see us, okay? And the hostages are more important than -”

“Me getting my revenge? You’re right, it’s not like he killed me.” 

Despite being crouched down, Sehun looms over Jongdae like a monster, a barely living being, and it’s like seeing the warehouse explode all over again. Jongdae has had that nightmare a hundred times over the past five years, and it’s just a revised version of it, of Sehun breaking and cracking open. It used to scare him, it used to hurt so much. Now, it just angers him. 

“Listen, you have to explain what the hell happened to you,” he starts, fire rising in his chest. 

Sehun snorts, and suddenly leaps up to his feet. He jumps on the low wall before Jongdae can stop him, and tenses his muscles. The concrete cracks under his soles when he jumps above the street like a flying arrow. He lands on the abandoned building’s roof so easily, and immediately swoops down on the first guard. Jongdae curses and jumps on his feet. He takes a few steps back and dashes off towards the low wall, gathering speed. It is so noisy to him, the rush of adrenaline, the sound of his left shoe on the low wall before his leg muscles propel him forward and even his cape immediately opening behind him, swelling with the momentum and flapping in the air, but he knows that he’s just a silent black shadow shooting across the polluted sky of the Bottoms right now. It eases the urgency rushing everywhere in his body and slows down everything just enough for him to take in the roof coming closer. He counts four guard still on their feet, guns aiming at Sehun currently fighting with two other guards. 

Power rushes to Jongdae’s fingers, and when he lands on the roof, it’s already buzzing and sizzling under his gloves. He grabs the two closest guards’ necks, and unleashes it. He knows exactly what to aim for, and barely one heartbeat later, the two guards collapse, their brains shutting down and settling down for a good eight-hour long nap. One of the two remaining mercenaries spots Jongdae, and he raises his gun, the barrel staring straight at Jongdae. No matter how quick he was, Jongdae is quicker. He sees the fingertip rushing to the trigger, the surprise flashing though the man’s eyes followed by hatred, just like he sees his own blade fly and hit the mercenary’s median nerve on his wrist. The strap holding the machine gun isn’t even taut that Jongdae is already grabbing the man’s throat. He feels his pulse, his fear, and he can taste the gun powder on the back of his tongue. Above it all, he feels his brain and his whole nervous system. It’s already too late for the mercenary. 

Jongdae lets go of his throat and the man’s body goes limp. It bends like a branch in the wind, and gravity finally grabs a hold of it. Jongdae is already whirling around, his hand flying to his belt to catch another blade. His senses are already focused on the last mercenary, and from what he’s feeling, the latter’s too far for Jongdae to just jump on him. He expects a gun, he expects a rictus and an expression of victory way too prompt to come, but he does not expect the mercenary on his knees, Sehun’s hands like claws spreading on each side of his face. Blood lust is staining his eyes, and a sort of macabre pleasure spreads over his face as his wrists click, ready to break the man’s neck.

“SEHUN!” 

Jongdae throws his blade in a desperate attempt at stopping the sudden icy adrenaline running through his body from freezing him, and it reaches Sehun in less than a heartbeat. The latter’s head snaps up so sharply that it barely looks human, and he lets go of the mercenary to stop the flying knife. The soft thud it does when it crashes against Sehun’s gloves reaches Jongdae’s ears like an explosion, but he does not catch any fabric ripping or flesh scratching sound. Of course. 

“No killing,” Jongdae hisses as he gets back on his feet. 

Sehun shoots daggers at him while he has the knife swirling between his fingers. They close on the blade part of it and he violently hits the mercenary on his temple with the handle. The man collapses, one eye still partially open, and blood already trickling down his face. Jongdae holds Sehun’s eyes, suspicious. He scans the rooftop and the bodies lying here and there, ears trailing after each heartbeat. 

“No one’s dead,” Sehun says. He tosses the blade back at Jongdae, who catches it mid-air. “Let’s go.”

Jongdae lets out a long sigh as Sehun mindlessly steps over a leg and walks to the roof top access. The screeching noise the door makes when Sehun opens it brings him back to his senses, and he winces as the sound painfully reverberates in his mind. Sehun throws him a look over his shoulder before he shrugs and steps into the building, Jongdae trailing after him. Now that he is closer, it’s definitely easier for him to pick up how many guards are wandering in the hallways, because of their heavy shoes shaking the building to its core. 

“Wait,” Jongdae whispers, and Sehun, who was already walking down the stairs, turns back to him. 

Jongdae avoids his gaze as he tries to focus as much as possible on the data his body receives. It comes to him in a massive knot of messy feelings and certainties, and it’s hard for him to decipher it, but all he knows is that he and Sehun are largely outnumbered. Dahye would have been so helpful. Jongin and Chanyeol, not so much though. 

“What?” Sehun finally asks, his voice bordering on impatient and annoyed.

Jongdae watches him. 

“We stay together, okay? We inspect every floor one by one. And we do _not_ get caught.”

Sehun doesn’t even try to hide his eye roll but his body has lost its challenging posture. 

“They’re probably on the upper floor anyway. We’ll be okay, we can do this.” He goes down one step and looks up at Jongdae again with a lopsided smile. “I won’t kill anyone, I swear.”

And it’s so genuine, so soft and definitely clashing with the current situation, that Jongdae can’t help a short chuckle. Sehun flashes him a childlike eye smile before walking down the stairs again with catlike stealth. Jongdae puts his hand just above the bannister so he can catch any vibrations coming their way then falls into step behind Sehun. 

“I can’t believe you turned killing people into a joke,” Jongdae says in a low whisper. 

For a short moment, he thinks Sehun didn’t even hear him, because the latter just crouches down before the door at the foot of the staircase, and doesn’t react. Feeling disappointed for some reason, Jongdae lets go of the trail, and focuses on what is coming from the other side of the door. 

“I can’t believe you actually laughed at it,” Sehun finally says.

Jongdae doesn’t laugh this time, but he does smile, and when Sehun glances at him over his shoulder, his smile turns into a wide grin. One that, he likes to think, echoes with the one spreading on Sehun’s lips under his mask. 

“Are you getting something?” Jongdae asks, forcing himself back to the more serious matters at hand. 

Sehun shakes his head. Jongdae silently gestures at him to step away so he can be the closest to the door. When Sehun throws him a confused look as he moves away, Jongdae answers with a confident glance. _He_ gets something. 

He feels Sehun’s eyes on him as he softly puts a hand on the door. The coldness of the metal easily sips through his glove, but Jongdae doesn’t even pay attention to it, too focused on what he’s feeling. He closes his eyes to limit the amount of data his senses are sending to his brain, and gathers his sensitivity on his palm. Sehun’s slow heartbeat feels like a lighthouse in the darkness painted over Jongdae’s eyelids, and he mentally clings to it. It’s his anchor, his guaranty that he won’t lose himself in the details, the scratching, breathing, the voices and the waves, all that mess waiting for him to lower his guard. 

The vibrations against the door harden. They emit a low sound as they spread over the metal of the door now, and Jongdae braces himself, adrenaline and tension taking over his whole body. When it becomes more sound than vibrations, Jongdae throws himself against the door, his whole body going rigid and solid right before he crashes against the surface. The violence of the shock has the hinges literally exploding. Without their restraint, the door turns into a huge shield for Jongdae who’s carried away by his momentum. He hits something, someone gasps and Jongdae presses harder against the metallic surface, pushes on his legs and drives his makeshift shield straight into the wall. There’s another gasp and, when Jongdae steps away, the familiar thud of a body collapsing. 

Jongdae grabs the door and puts it against the wall as silently as he can, before looking down at the mercenary he knocked out cold lying at his feet. Sehun joins him, one eyebrow raised. 

“ _That’s_ discreet to you?” he deadpans. 

Jongdae shrugs and crouches down, just as a radio frequency buzzes in his ears. 

“Hey, Thompson, is everything okay? What was that sound?” a male voice says through the radio on the mercenary’s bulletproof jacket.

Sehun throws a very patronizing and disapproving glance at Jongdae, but Jongdae ignores him. Instead, he presses his fingertips on the man’s temple while grabbing the radio with his other hand. His power lightens the path like tiny bright lanterns, and Jongdae just has to mentally follow it until it takes him right where he wants to go. He plays with synapses, with electricity and connections until the mercenary’s eyes suddenly shoot open, blank but definitely awake. 

“Nah, ‘s okay mate, I tripped,” he says with a strong Australian accent in the radio Jongdae’s been holding in front of his face. 

He cuts a few connections here and there, undoes what he’s done, and when he withdrawn from the man, the latter is unconscious again. Jongdae looks up at Sehun with a lopsided smile. 

“I can’t believe you,” the man’s voice groans, mingling with the statics. “Quit playing around, will you? Go switch with Parker before he shoots the kid’s brains out.” 

Jongdae and Sehun stare at each other as a third voice fills the air. 

“Yes, _please_. He won’t shut the fuck up, I’m about to throw myself out of a window. Do people die when they jump from the third floor?”

Sehun rolls his eyes, and Jongdae barely refrains a snort. Third floor, uh? He looks around them, squinting at the darkness flooding the hallways. The building looks even more sinister on the inside. Bared walls and graffitis close down on them, and all sorts of rubbish cover the floor. There’s a ripped mattress lying a few steps ahead, and huge chunks of walls building tiny mountains here and there. Jongdae notices a few syringes catching the faint street light seeping through the holes and broken windows, and some dark thick puddles which he’d rather not get any closer to. 

“So?” Sehun whispers. “Right or left?”

Jongdae glances at him before taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. Just like he did a couple of minutes earlier, he tries to focus on his other senses, his conscience running around the whole building to fetch any detail that might be useful. He can feel the structure vibrating and the radio frequency the mercenaries use immediately sticks out, as he just tweaked it. Other than that though, it’s the same bundle of voices, heartbeats and lungs swelling. Frustrated, he opens his eyes and gets back up on his feet. 

“Right,” Sehun suddenly whispers. 

His eyes are glued to the hallway stretching on their left, and Jongdae easily recognizes the slight twitch in his already furrowed brows. Intrigued, he follows Sehun’s gaze and gathers his senses, ready to lash them out to identify whatever threat Sehun may have felt. Before he does though, he glances back at Sehun only to see that the latter is now watching him. His body is easily blurred by the surrounding darkness, just like his face is almost ghostly in the middle of all that black, but to Jongdae, it’s like going back to your childhood house after years. It’s different, it’s empty and cold, and it may feel a bit smaller than it should have been, but it’s familiar. Sehun’s face moves and twitches like it used to, and this expression is for eagerness, eagerness to be trusted. 

“Right,” Jongdae repeats softly. “Lead the way.”

Sehun nods and immediately plasters his face with indifference. Jongdae watches him turn back on his heels. Maybe there’s hope. They _are_ working together after all. 

They reach the corner of the hallway, and Sehun gestures at Jongdae to stop. They exchange a glance and Jongdae instinctively reaches out to grab Sehun’s hand and communicate with him in the most silent way since, he muses, Sehun also felt the two guards a few steps ahead. But Sehun jumps away with a start. His heart frantically speeds up and he throws the most helpless look at Jongdae, his wide eyes making him look like a deer caught in the headlights. Jongdae’s own ribcage closes on his heart as he sees Sehun eagerly stepping away in slow motion. He holds out his hand to try and catch Sehun’s wrist in a very desperate and stupid attempt at stopping the catastrophe unfolding before him.

Sehun’s eyes harden, so slowly and so fast at the same time, and a sort of cold determination takes over his face as the right side of his mouth twitches up. Still stepping back, and unfortunately leaving the safety of their hidden spot, he grabs one of his blades. It happens in slow motion, but, mesmerized by the impending doom he knows is coming Jongdae can only watch.

“Hey!” a voice suddenly says as Sehun steps farther away from the corner, and that’s when the world clicks back to its usual speed. 

Jongdae gasps and jumps forward, but Sehun has already thrown the blade, and one of the guards has already opened fire. Some of the bullets fly past him. From the corner of his eyes, Jongdae sees the first man falling forward, Sehun’s blade driving through his shoulder, and urgency swoops down on him. He braces himself and tackles Sehun with his shoulder, as violently as he can. Surprised, the latter gasps while the shock has him letting go of the second blade he had just taken. 

“Stop that!” Sehun protests as he shoves Jongdae away. 

A new burst of bullets hits the wall just next to Sehun’s head. Jongdae grabs him by the collar and pushes him down while he turns around and grabs a blade with his other hand. He tosses it above his head, catches it mid-air by the blade side of it and throws it towards the last mercenary. He doesn’t get to see him collapse after it hits his head, because Sehun is pushing him away with so much strength that he almost loses his balance. 

“Don’t do that! Ever again!” Sehun hisses, furious. 

He doesn’t seem to notice that his fingers are clenching around the remaining blades on his thigh holster, but Jongdae does, so he hastily raises his hands to ease him. 

“I won’t, I won’t! I’m sorry!”

Sehun narrows his eyes at him, the left side of his face slightly twitching. Jongdae waits, his throat too constricted to allow him to fully breathe, and adrenaline raging on in his ears, begging him to move because the whole building has probably heard what just happened. But Jongdae just waits until Sehun is done battling the madness closing in on him. The radio frequency constantly sizzles in the air as the mercenaries call for backup, and in the midst of this chaos, little by little, Sehun’s heartbeat finally slows down until it is back to its usual cold, detached rhythm. 

“I didn’t kill him,” Sehun whispers. 

Jongdae glances at the two mercenaries lying down a few steps ahead. His instincts are pushing, biting on his muscles and licking fire in his veins to get him to move, but Jongdae keeps his focus on Sehun. 

“I know,” he says as the two heartbeats graze his ears. The shoulder wound must have been painful enough for the man to just pass out, which Jongdae can definitely understand. It _is_ painful. 

He glances at Sehun, and finally lowers his hands. Sehun still looks a bit confused, as though he had missed the last few moments, but his face goes back to carefully measured indifference with every second passing by. 

“Come on,” Jongdae finally says. “We need to get the hostages.”

He turns on his heels and dashes off towards the door that the mercenaries were guarding. More than a door actually, it’s a hole in the wall, but it does lead into another room. The floor under Jongdae’s soles shake as he steps over rocks and ruins, and the urgency gets even stronger. He glances over his shoulder to make sure Sehun is following him, and rushes into the room. 

The search doesn’t take long, as the room is pretty small and empty aside from the single chair standing at its centre. Jongdae immediately recognizes the face of the man – boy – sitting on it. Do Kyungsoo looks a lot like his father, although Do Insung doesn’t have Kyungsoo’s roundness. Other than that, he mostly looks afraid, bordering on terrified, and the blood on his face, the bruises and the bumps makes him appear even more vulnerable and much younger than Jongdae knows him to be. 

“It’s okay,” he says in a hurry. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

“The city?” Kyungsoo asks. His voice as a shallow quality in it, as though it broke one too many times before, and Jongdae’s heart clenches in his chest when he notices the very obvious signs of torture on the boy’s arms. “Is the city safe? I’m not – I can’t go home before they find all the bombs.”

Sehun snorts under his mask as he cuts the ropes tying Kyungsoo’s ankles to the chair, and Jongdae knows exactly what he is thinking. Kyungsoo probably shares more with his father than physical likeness, but considering the situation he is currently in, he shouldn’t be so prompt at thinking about others before himself. 

“It’s okay,” Jongdae repeats, tearing apart the ropes around Kyungsoo’s wrists. “Don’t worry, we got it all under control. Just tell us where are the other hostages. Can you do that for me?”

Kyungsoo frowns as he accepts Jongdae’s helpful arm. The ferrous smell of blood is stinging, bitter, and Jongdae forces himself to breathe only through his mouth. His senses are on overdrive, all of them frantically following the mercenaries as they get irremediably closer. 

“The hostages?” Kyungsoo asks, confused. “Are there more hostages?”

“The mayor’s wife,” Sehun says.

To both his and Jongdae’s surprise, Kyungsoo is the one snorting this time. His face twitches with anger and coldness as his eyes harden – a look that Jongdae’s see a bazillion times on Insung’s face.

“The Mayor?” he repeats. “ _He_ ’s the one who took me there. He got me out of the house by saying my dad wanted to talk to me. He was here with Thorne.”

Jongdae freezes. 

“What?” he says, dumbfounded. 

It doesn’t make any sense. Why would have the Mayor kidnapped Kyungsoo? That was Thorne’s doing, that’s what he said during his special flash. The bombs, the Bottoms lockdown, all Thorne. Everything, since the beginning, everything was on Thorne. The jewel thieves. Thorne.

Jongdae looks over at Sehun, confused and lost, but his question dies out on the tip of his tongue when he catches the look on Sehun’s face. 

“Thorne’s here?” Sehun asks in a low voice, almost like a groan. 

A red alert immediately goes off in Jongdae’s mind.

“Sehun,” Jongdae calls him out. 

Sehun’s head snap towards Jongdae, and Jongdae feels it before it happens – the shift and the muscles rolling under Sehun’s skin, the anger and the icy need for revenge taking over his eyes. With the mercenaries now flooding the third floor, Kyungsoo still leaning on his arm, Jongdae starts feels panic mercilessly closing its claws on his heart. 

“Sehun,” he starts, but it’s too late. Sehun is already whirling around and pulling out three blades from his holster. They stick out from between his fingers. 

“Sehun!” 

Sehun doesn’t even bother looking over his shoulder. He steps out of the room, crouches down to grab a gun from one of the mercenaries they’ve knocked out before, and the last thing Jongdae sees of him, is a sharp side view and a macabre contentment as he opens fire on whoever’s coming his way. Jongdae turns back to Kyungsoo, wrapping himself around him to shield him, his heart beating loudly in his chest. 

“Shit,” he curses. He looks up at the rest of the room, but there’s nothing there that could help him. He could survive to the fall if he were to jump from the window, but Kyungsoo wouldn’t. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Kyungsoo’s fingers are digging in his flesh and even though he’s obviously trying to keep calm, the fear taking over his face and making his heart hurl against his ribcage tells another story. Jongdae holds him tighter, his eyes going back to the window as gunfire and screams fill the corridor behind him. He could keep Kyungsoo against him and make sure he lands on top of him. Would his own body be enough to protect Kyungsoo from any severe injuries? Considering that he’s already in bad shape… 

A bullet whistles past Jongdae’s ear, and he crouches down, still holding Kyungsoo against him. He grabs his cape with an arm and wraps it around Kyungsoo and him so that their bodies will disappear. Hopefully that will distort the mercenaries’ aiming, and he’ll be the only one getting shot. Kyungsoo seems to understand his plan, because he curls up on himself, careful to keep his arms and legs close. He looks up at him, dried blood in one of his eyebrows and bruises darkening the skin around his left eye, and Jongdae holds his gaze. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m gonna get you out of here.”

Kyungsoo nods. 

Jongdae holds him tighter. He looks up at the window, his decision made. If they stay here, Kyungsoo will die. If Jongdae jumps, he at least has a chance. _What about Sehun?_ his mental voice says, and Jongdae’s heart clenches painfully. He can’t go running after him with Kyungsoo. The latter has to be his priority, no matter what. 

“Hold on tight,” he whispers, hoping that Kyungsoo will hear him above the ruckus going on, and, gathering his courage, he straightens up, his eyes glued to the window. He barely has time to take one step that a stinging pain explodes in his back. He winces, holding back a moan, as he feels a foreign body tearing his flesh apart. He starts healing right away, but the bullet is still inside, and with each roll of Jongdae’s muscles, the wound reopens. 

Jongdae groans as more bullets fly in the room. He lets go of Kyungsoo and pulls out a blade from his belt. He glances over his shoulder to aim while walking towards the window, hoping to slow down the mercenaries long enough for them to jump but what he sees instead freezes him. 

Gasping, he lowers his blade as a very familiar man smiles at him from the entrance of the room. 

“Hello,” Byun Baekhyun says, absolutely gorgeous in his three-piece suit. “Need a hand?”

Jongdae realizes that the radio frequency now filling the building is different than the one the mercenaries used. He straightens up, uncovers Kyungsoo, although still keeping him close, and takes in Baekhyun, confused. 

Baekhyun blinks at him, full of mischief. He looks flawless, his hair perfectly styled and the red eyeshadow still darkening the outer corners of his eyes. He’s not holding any weapons – more like his weapons aren’t in sight, but Jongdae knows better than to be fooled. Baekhyun is standing on a pile of bodies, like a king of ancient times, feral and deadly, and if the bodies weren’t enough, the blood stain on his cheek, only traces of the fight that just ended, is definitely a more tangible proof. 

“Oh come on,” Baekhyun chuckles. “I was expecting a thank you at least.”

“Bring them to me,” Lexie’s voice says in Baekhyun’s ear and in Jongdae’s mind. She sounds just as delighted as her right arm.

 

 

Baekhyun leads them through the dirty streets of the Bottoms, his strides long and fast, so much that his group of personal soldiers has to trot around him to keep up. Jongdae’s back still blurts out blood with every steps he takes, but he makes sure not to be distanced by Lexie’s assassin. He still has an arm around Kyungsoo, whose left ankle revealed to be twisted, but he’s pretty sure Kyungsoo would prefer limping his way to wherever Baekhyun is taking them considering how fast Jongdae is walking. He’s polite enough to keep his mouth shut though, or maybe it’s bravery, but whatever it is, Jongdae is grateful because right now, the last thing he wants to do is be at the back of Baekhyun’s little parade. 

“So?” he asks “What the fuck were you doing in that building?”

Baekhyun barely spares him a glance, but the constant lopsided smirk on his lips stretches out a bit wider as an obvious sign that he did hear Jongdae. The latter internally groans, his whole being itching and urging him to punch that patronizing smile off Baekhyun’s face. Instead, he glances at Kyungsoo to make sure the latter is still holding up, and he uses the short pause away from Baekhyun’s closed face to calm his nerves. Kyungsoo looks at him, but he doesn’t say anything, his hand still clenching on Jongdae’s cape for support. He doesn’t look as scared now that they’ve left the building he was trapped in. Actually, now he doesn’t look scared _enough_ for a boy who isn’t nineteen yet and who has been dropped in the middle of a gang war. This city really does do things to people, Jongdae thinks. 

Kyungsoo flashes him a light smile which clashes with the paleness of his face and the wounds taking over his features. Jongdae feels himself compelled to smile back, and he does so before drawing back his attention on Baekhyun. The golden earpiece in the latter’s ear catches his eyes as they walk through a pool of light. A new shot of anger and frustration takes over him. Between that and Sehun bailing out on him and being God knows where… he’s about to explode.

“I know you can hear me!” he yells, leaning closer to Baekhyun’s ear. The latter startles, much to Jongdae’s pleasure, but quickly recomposes himself before throwing an amused look at Jongdae. 

“And this is not funny anymore!” Jongdae adds, shooting daggers at Baekhyun. 

“Mrs. Wright would never _ever_ think such a situation is funny,” Baekhyun says, with his obedient voice. 

“Cut the shit,” he says between gritted teeth. “What were you doing in that building? Were you aware the hostages were there all this time? And where is Thorne?”

Kyungsoo tenses against his side. Jongdae can’t blame him. In the chaos, he didn’t really have a chance to talk to him, but there’s not much mystery about what happened to him. He tightens his hold around the young man, and Kyungsoo softens.

“Did the bombs go off?” he asks with a worried, almost hesitant voice.

Jongdae pairs his own questioning eyes with Kyungsoo’s as he looks back at Baekhyun. The latter shakes his head. 

“We didn’t know,” he tells Jongdae after a short silence. “We’re taking back the Bottoms block by block and we ran into your little friends. They told us where you were. Call it whatever you want, coincidence or destiny, but I still think a thank you is overdue.”

Jongdae snorts, but his heart misses a beat. Dahye. It’s not unusual for them to go silent for a few hours, but now that he knows she came across Baekhyun, he’d give a lot to talk to her. While the assassin is around though, he has to keep his worry for himself. His silence is apparently enough for Baekhyun to pick up on his internal dilemma, and he flashes an annoying reassuring smile at Jongdae. 

“Don’t worry,” he says with a honey voice. “They’re okay.”

Jongdae glares at him, but doesn’t answer.

Next to him, Kyungsoo watches Baekhyun with furrowed eyebrows, a hint of outrage and disdain in his eyes. 

“You said Mrs. Wright,” he says. “Lexie? Lexie Wright? You’re working for Lexie Wright?”

Baekhyun grins. “Yes I am.”

Kyungsoo snorts. Eighteen or not, the boy looks at Baekhyun, who probably murdered a good dozen of people tonight – if not more - like he’s some ugly bug that deserves nothing more than to be stepped on. He doesn’t even bother hiding his gaze, or pretending to be impressed or scared by Baekhyun’s obvious powerful rank in Port Ville’s mob web; he just stares at him, as straight-forwardly as possible, with so much disdain and hardness that Jongdae himself gets caught in it. 

“You don’t deserve any thank you then,” Kyungsoo says, defying. “My dad told me about your boss. She’s evil.”

Jongdae instinctively deploys his senses, sticking a bit of his attention on every soldier walking around them, but mostly on Baekhyun. The latter is known for his speed and his agility, and if he were to pull out one of his weapons right now, he could become lethal for Kyungsoo. Baekhyun doesn’t show any sign of anger though. 

“My boss likes your father,” Baekhyun says with a charming smile and a flirtatious intonation. “We both thinks he’s a great Commissioner.” 

Kyungsoo stares at him, obviously outraged. Jongdae hears him take his breath, but he presses him tighter against himself before Kyungsoo can actually insult Baekhyun and Lexie again. He does it a bit stronger than what he aimed for, because Kyungsoo lets out a tiny yelp of pain quickly followed by a look of betrayal and anger towards Jongdae – who ignores it, feeling very much like he’s facing Do Insung.

Baekhyun doesn’t miss the exchange, and he lets out what sounds like a low chuckle. Jongdae watches him with suspicion, but Baekhyun doesn’t add anything to the subject. He turns right at the end of the street, the whole troop on his heels. He doesn’t even pause before crossing the road, and with how empty the Bottoms are right now, Baekhyun looks like a King going home. _To his deadly Queen_ , Jongdae thinks. 

He scans their surroundings, but mostly crashes against closed windows, doors and shutters and people hiding in the safety of their homes, just like it was in Chanyeol’s neighbourhood. They’re not downtown yet, although they did get closer, and the agitation there is now much clearer in Jongdae’s ears. He picks up gunfire, detonations and screams, just like he hears the air buzzing over there as probably a hundred of radios and talkie walkies are gathered in the centre. He still can’t make out what’s really happening, because it feels like a wall to him, thick and too rigid for him to slip through a crack, but the tension is definitely stronger here, almost tangible. 

Baekhyun lifts a hand, and the mercenaries all stop in unison in front of a shabby pub. The wooden plank clumsily screwed above the red door looks so old and seedy that Jongdae can’t even read the name of the place. It’s bordering on poetic, because the pub looks like the negative of Lexie’s club, and she definitely is the type of person who enjoys a good irony when it’s nicely dosed. For all Jongdae knows, she could actually own the place and run it like the shadow of her club. Light and shadow are always intricately connected, and that is something she’s always loved playing with. 

The mercenaries close around them, their backs turned on Jongdae, Kyungsoo and Baekhyun as they scan the two ends of the street, their guns ready to spit if the slightest shadow twitch. Baekhyun stretches his hand and opens the door. His eyes fall on Jongdae, and he smiles. 

“After you.”

Jongdae can feel Kyungsoo’s eyes on him, probably pleading and bordering on judging, but what can he do? Kyungsoo obviously cannot run, and trying to escape to ten machine guns is already risky enough without that. He knows Lexie likes to be theatrical and intense, just like he is painfully aware that Baekhyun is her most valued director, and he chooses to ignore the lurking nervousness rising in his chest. Chances are that Lexie will just have a word or two with them before letting go, and, who knows, Jongdae might also receive some precious information, such as what happened exactly when they came across Dahye. So he braces himself, tightens his hold around Kyungsoo’s waist and steps into the pub. 

“Are you working with her?” Kyungsoo aggressively whispers. “Are you a sell-out? I can’t believe you, of all people –”

“Shht,” Jongdae hisses. He draws his attention away from the ridiculously confined corridor they’re walking in to glance at Kyungsoo. “Don’t say anything, you hear me? You let me do the talking.”

The hallway is only lightened by a couple of bare bulbs hanging from the ceilings, and it’s barely enough to break the dusty, creepy darkness stagnating around them, but Jongdae doesn’t miss the glare Kyungsoo flashes him. He finds it almost funny how he has almost the same expressions than his father, but with a rawness and a straightforwardness that even Commissioner Do Insung wouldn’t have dreamed to have. Insung was probably softened by the years of dealing with Port Ville’s politics and the charity events and other galas he’s always invited to, but Kyungsoo obviously doesn’t have that common sense. Which makes him both admirable and stupid, really. 

The hallway turns to be quite short, and they soon emerge in the main room of the pub. The lack of windows and proper light makes it look as dirty and oppressive as the entrance was. An impression that the very low ceiling and the crooked walls easily emphasize, and Jongdae can’t help but feel like every piece of furniture was placed in here to make sure no customer would miss how unsteady the whole place looks. There are a few stools aligned along the bar, a good amount of dust on the label-less bottles stashed on mismatched shelves, and a disassembled jukebox glooming in a corner. 

A creeping sense of uneasiness runs down Jongdae’s spine as more gloomy details invade his sight, and the presence of Lexie Wright and a greyish-haired man that Jongdae knows too well don’t really help. However, his eyes catch a very familiar silhouette which, this time, has a strong sense of relief wash over him. 

“Heize!” he exclaims as his heart leaps into his throat. 

Dahye flashes him a weak smile, and Jongdae’s blood freezes in his veins. He hastily takes her in, but she doesn’t seem to be injured. Her heartbeat though is erratic, and unusually heavy. Her long cape is wrapped around her small body figure in a protective way, and her hood is pulled up, but he doesn’t miss the look of distress she sends him. Still holding Kyungsoo against him, Jongdae looks at the other familiar figure standing next to her, and the look Jongin sends him back is as worried as Dahye’s – actually even bordering on pained, and it doesn’t take long for Jongdae to understand why. The ferrous smell of blood tickles his nose, and he can taste copper on the back of his tongue. 

“What happened?” he asks as he catches sight of the wound Jongin’s sporting on his arm. 

He joins his two friends with a few strides, Kyungsoo limping next to him, and helps the latter take support against the wall. Dahye barely spares him a glance, her eyes instead jumping to the entrance of the room. Jongdae looks into Jongin’s face before drawing his attention on the wound. 

“It’s okay,” Jongin says in a low voice. “I got shot, but it didn’t touch anything, I can still move my arm.”

Jongdae glances at Lexie and Baekhyun over his shoulder, purposely ignoring the third man. 

“Where’s Chanyeol?” he asks Dahye and Jongin as he makes Jongin take support against the wall, just next to Kyungsoo. The two exchange a pained, and comprehensive look. 

Dahye’s face crumbles and falls. She nervously squirms from one foot to the other. 

“I lost him,” she says. Her voice is raw, but it doesn’t break. She throws a nervous glance over Jongdae’s shoulder. “There was an attack in the school, and I lost him in the chaos… I – I tried to find him but Jongin got shot. I had to evacuate him and – ”

“And we saved them,” a very raspy and low voice says. 

Dahye’s lips seal together, and she steps closer to Jongin and Kyungsoo, her posture protective and wary. Jongdae can’t blame her. Dealing with Lexie is a thing but dealing with her boss is another thing. Yet, here he is, so tall that his perfectly styled hair grazes the ceiling, and so stereotypical with his long coat and the dark borsalina in his hands. Leone Pavoni himself watches Jongdae with disapproval, his thick eyebrows furrowed and the curve of his lips hanging low on his chin. 

“I am not used to being ignored, my boy,” he says. 

His voice is so loud, so stormy. This is a man who is used to crush people with his presence only, a man who does not take no for answers. This is the only man who gives orders to Lexie Wright. Jongdae glances at Dahye, but they both stay quiet. 

“He’s probably too intimidated to ask his questions,” Lexie chuckles. She’s sitting on of the tools with her legs dangling off a few inches above the floor. Her golden high heels regularly catch the light. 

“We saved your people,” Pavoni says, his eyes still digging holes in Jongdae’s face. “In exchange, I want you to kill Thorne.”

Silence follows Pavoni’s thunder voice. Jongdae, his arm still stretched towards Dahye, and his body turned to Kyungsoo and Jongin, watches the leader of what is now the last organized mob of Port Ville, dumbfounded. 

“ _What?_ ”

“Oh, honey,” Lexie purrs. She looks so excited, past delighted, and when Jongdae draws his attention on her, she playfully winks at him. 

It at least enables Jongdae to get a grip on himself. Warmth spreads over his cheeks as he can feel his blood rush there, and he glares at her before turning back to Pavoni. 

“I am not _your_ boy,” he hisses. There’s too much information, too many things to process, from Sehun being gone – again – to Jongin’s injury and Chanyeol’s disappearance. Jongdae should be out there, he should be helping his friends, and not licking Pavoni’s shiny boots. “And I won’t help you kill Thorne. That’s not what I do. You didn’t even save _all_ my friends and you want me to become your errand boy?”

Dahye takes in a particularly loud lungful of air behind him, but Jongdae doesn’t let Pavoni’s narrowed eyes unsettle him. 

“Didn’t I tell you he wouldn’t take it well?” Lexie singsongs. 

“Yes you did,” Baekhyun adds, with an equally musical voice. 

Jongdae feels his temper flare dangerously, and his senses swell around him in response to the growing amount of adrenaline burning through his veins. He catches Kyungsoo, Jongin and Dahye all watching him – Kyungsoo with a certain delight, Jongin with sick worry and pain all over his face, and Dahye with wary eyes – and his mind receives every smell, every sound filling the pub, but also its close surroundings. Heartbeats, blood rushing through veins, lungs swelling then emptying themselves, and sweat, fancy perfumes, and a very distinct smell of leather. Jongdae freezes and whirls around, his heart now spitting fire in his veins. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he groans as a slow, regular heartbeat fills his ears. 

Surely enough, Sehun steps into the room, in his leather gloriousness. The smell of blood gets stronger, and Jongdae quickly spots the holes on Sehun’s chest from which a dark thick liquid has trickled down on his jacket. The dirty bulbs of light barely reach his face, and the gloomy atmosphere of the pub seems to mix particularly well with the shadows on Sehun’s face, but Jongdae does catch his eyes lowering in what looks like an abashed expression. Oh, it _better_ be. 

“Thorne wasn’t there,” Sehun states in a blank voice.

“Ah,” Pavoni smiles. “Here you are, Mr…” his voice trails off and he glances at Lexie. 

“The Hood,” she says. Contrary to Pavoni, her own smile radiates real warmth that reaches her eyes and makes them curl up. “Just, the Hood.”

Pavoni looks back at Sehun, and Jongdae knows what’s coming next. Anger swells in his chest, until it feels too big for his own body and crushing for his bones. The bullet in his back is still tearing his flesh, but he now takes perverse pleasure in it as it matches his flaring desire to tear the whole place down.

“Shut up,” he snaps at Sehun as the latter looks back at Pavoni. “You shut up. And you – ” he turns back his attention of the mob leader. “My answer’s no. I don’t care about your stupid vendetta, I am not part of your gang, okay? Thorne isn’t even the only leader, the Mayor himself is mixed up in all that mess, so get your shit together and just deal with it yourself, if you’re so powerful.”

“The Mayor?” Jongin gasps in his back. 

Kyungsoo nods. “Yep,” he says, popping out the last letter.

Jongdae meets Dahye’s eyes, which are momentarily stripped of worry and instead filled by confusion and wordless questions. He shakes his head discreetly, and she gets the message. They can’t talk right now, he’ll explain later. 

“It makes sense,” Pavoni muses. “I myself have some contacts with Port Ville’s high society, just like Beaulieu had his.”

Jongdae stares. He’s always known Port Ville was corrupted. This is why, after all, he decided to become Alpha when he was sixteen, because he couldn’t handle it anymore. He was hopeful back then though, he was so convinced he could do some good and change the way things were, and maybe he did. Maybe it got a bit better during those five years, maybe the Bottoms were a bit safer, and justice was fairer. But then he folded the Alpha costume and he left it to rot under his bed, he left _himself_ to rot with his guilt and his loss. It’s so clear now, none of this chaos would have happened if Jongdae has just sucked it up and kept on going. The people of Port Ville should have had been more important, he should have realized there was a greater good, that it wasn’t just about his grief. Dahye did, after all. She enrolled, she became a cop, and he just kept on wallowing in self-pity. 

The guilt that seizes him is new, fresh and heavy. He keeps a straight face but he can feel himself collapsing in the silence blooming around him. He thought he had experienced it all when he saw that warehouse explode just a few feet away from him, but he was wrong. How many people died because he could see no further than the end of his nose?

“It’s no,” he repeats. His voice sounds distant to his own ears. “Use your connections if you have so many of them. I’m not doing your dirty work.”

“Does everyone agree with that?” Lexie says. Jongdae’s breath catches in her throat as she literally glows from her stool. “Do _you_?” she continues, her eyes stopping on Sehun. 

“Fuck you, Lexie,” Jongdae hisses. He turns to Sehun. “Don’t move.” 

He can feel the tension seizing Sehun’s body from where he is standing, he can see the muscles tightening under the leather jacket or his tight jeans. He catches Sehun’s jaws roll under his facial mask, but Sehun does not move. Jongdae goes back to glaring at Lexie. He won’t let her use Sehun, she won’t push him around this time. He realizes that she probably gave specific orders about Sehun, because the latter entered the Pavoni headquarters without having to put on a fight, and it just angers him even more. He can be her pawn if she wants to, he can play with her, but Sehun can’t. Sehun is already playing with too many voices, and Jongdae won’t let her be one of them. 

“I know where Thorne is,” Pavoni says. “And I can ask Lexie and Mr. Byun here to protect your two wounded friends while she –” he gestures at Dahye “- leaves to try and find your missing duckling.”

“That would be a pleasure,” Baekhyun says in a whisper as he flashes an eye smile at Kyungsoo, who glowers at him in answer. 

Jongdae immediately feels Dahye walking closer. He turns his attention on her, and unsurprisingly meets her pleading eyes. She’s obviously trying to appear strong and impossible to crack, but she’s worried sick about Chanyeol. 

“The communicators?” he asks her in a low voice. 

She shakes her head. 

“They burnt out when we used one of …” she obviously hesitates to say Jongin’s name, her eyes going to the latter then to Pavoni, and Jongdae chooses not to tell her that both Chanyeol and Jongin’s names already popped into the conversation. “One of _his_ EMP bombs.” 

“I told you they were just prototypes,” Jongin mumbles. He looks even paler than when Jongdae stepped into the pub earlier, but his eyes haven’t lost their fiery look, even when they silently plead Jongdae. 

Jongdae looks into Dahye’s face, his heart beating erratically against his ribcage. Is he really considering accepting that deal? There’s no discussing the fact that they need to find Chanyeol, and sooner better than later. They also have to tend to Kyungsoo and Jongin, who are hurt and who shouldn’t be dragged back into the fight. Thorne obviously has to be stopped, and now, it sounds like Jongdae can add the Mayor’s name to his list of people to bring in as quickly as possible. He can’t do all of it alone, and for the first time, Dahye isn’t enough. 

Jongdae glances at Sehun, whose eyes have never left him. He can’t let him go after Thorne, but it’s also quite obvious that he can’t really stop him. If Sehun decides he wants to leave, Jongdae would hardly be an obstacle for him. But, if he comes with him, if he tags along, he might have a chance to stop Sehun from killing Thorne. 

And that, Jongdae shamefully realizes, might be what he wants the most. He wants to believe that _this_ time, he can stop it. He can save Sehun. 

Jongdae feels his resolve crumble under the weight of his guilt and the amount of self-loathing filling him. His heart beating harshly against his ribcage, he looks at Dahye. Behind him, Sehun stirs, another wave of tension emitting from his body as he probably picked up on the change of speed in Jongdae’s heart rate.

“Give me your earpiece,” Jongdae asks him. 

Sehun obeys without blinking, almost eagerly pulling out the little device from his ear. He lets it fall in Jongdae’s palm, intent on avoiding any contact. Jongdae glares at him before drawing back his attention on Dahye. He hands her the communicator.

“Give me yours,” he then says coldly to Baekhyun. 

The latter raises an eyebrow. He glances at Lexie who discreetly nods, and takes out his own earpiece. He puts it in Jongdae’s palm, and the latter focuses on the golden piece of metal. He wraps himself around the waves it emits and lets them take him into the core of the device. There he tweaks it, sew new waves for it, and only withdraws when they reverberate in him the exact same way the ones from his own earpiece do. He turns to Kyungsoo and Jongin. 

“Here you go. Don’t burn that one out.”

He tosses it at Jongin, who raises his arms to catch it but moans in pain when he does. Kyungsoo is the one closing his fist around it mid-air. He hands it to Jongin, the latter thanking him with a little smile. 

“You’re going to tell me where Thorne is now,” Jongdae continues, this time speaking to Pavoni. “I _will_ stop Thorne, but I’ll do it by the book. He’s gonna end his life in jail.”

Pavoni shakes his head. “That’s not the deal I offered you, boy.”

Jongdae opens his mouth, but Lexie interrupts by giving a little cough. Pavoni frowns and turns to her. She gives him a blinding smile, her hands under her thighs as she dangles her legs in a very childlike way. 

“You might want to change the deal,” she says in a voice laced with honey. “Beaulieu’s already dead and you’re the king now. Alpha will basically be acting on your orders, everyone in the streets will know. Plus,” she simpers. “Thorne going to prison doesn’t mean we can’t kill him, does it?”

Pavoni considers her. She’s right, of course she is. Just like the rest of Port Ville, the city prison isn’t as safe as it should be, and there isn’t a week passing by without some prisoner bleeding out on his bunk. Gangs have infected its cells, and justice has been kicked out in favour of settling of scores. This is a problem Jongdae will have to deal with, of course, but there’s a time and place for everything. First, Thorne has to be brought in.

“Okay,” Pavoni says with the little smile of a man who knows he can’t be stopped. “Okay.”

His eyes fall on Sehun, and Jongdae mentally snorts. _Think what you want old man, that’s not happening_ , he internally hisses. His eyes go from Pavoni to Sehun though, and he shoots the latter a very serious look. 

“You stay with me. Should you try to shake me off, I’ll take you out.” 

Sehun holds his gaze, but he doesn’t protest. The tension is so heavy around him that he now squirms, itching to dash off after Thorne.

Jongdae turns to Dahye. 

“Call Insung. Tell him his son is safe and he can enter the Bottoms now. We’re gonna need the PVPD.” 

Dahye nods. 

“And tell me when you find Chanyeol, okay?”

She doesn’t nod this time, but she sends him a very grateful look that Jongdae doesn’t think he deserves. He does not dwell on it though – because that would be the worse timing – and turns back to Lexie, Baekhyun and Pavoni.

“I need your promise that my friends will be safe with you.”

“You have my words,” Pavoni immediately delivers, way too prompt to be sincere. 

“Not yours,” Jongdae says. He gestures at Lexie with a nod. “ _Hers_.”

Lexie straightens on her stool, and gives him the most blazing smile Jongdae has ever seen. She’s a snake, yes, but she’s always lived up to her words with Jongdae, despite everything she might have hidden. He wants her to tell plainly that she will take care of Kyungsoo and Jongin.

“Baekhyun and I will protect your kids, love. You have my words.”

The red alert alarm is now constantly ringing through Jongdae’s mind, shrieking and painful. He has absolutely no idea what he’s doing, but he just really hopes he’s not making this hell even worse than it already is. Because that wouldn’t be the first time.

 

 

 

“The sewers,” Sehun mumbles. “The fucking sewers.”

Jongdae looks over his shoulder only to see Sehun glaring back at him. He can’t deny that it does look like the definition of _worse_ right now, but the more he thinks about his plan, the more it makes sense. It seemed silly to consider slipping into Thorne’s headquarters through the roof access, and even more to even think about using the front door. Thankfully, the building Thorne chose for his troops is none other than the Bottoms’ abandoned police station, which involves a lot of different accesses, including a direct connection between the morgue and the sewers. That’s their way in. Jongdae’s plan might not be the most comfortable, it seemed to be the smartest one. 

Sehun meets his eyes, his face scrunched in a scornful expression. 

“I hate this city.”

“Sewers are everywhere, not just here you know?” Jongdae snorts. 

He takes a certain pleasure in the way Sehun glowers at him, but he mentally agrees with the latter. The pungent smell stagnating around him has knotted his stomach and definitely killed his chances to use his nose to detect anything, and the confined space of the arched tunnel has turned him slightly claustrophobic. He knows this is nothing specific to Port Ville, but it looks even more gloomy to him because of the city spreading above their heads. He wouldn’t be surprised to find a few rotten corpses here and there, or even discover that the old urban legend about eight-feet long crocodiles living down here are true.

Sehun doesn’t add anything, so they walk deeper into the tunnel in silence. Luckily for them, the Bottoms police station isn’t a big building – just like every building on the island since the first colonists tried to squeeze all their installations there before realising there was a piece of land literally just across the bay that was still unclaimed. It also means that the station’s installations are outdated, and that there is no high-tech security system as the place was shut down more than sixty years ago. Jongdae supposes it was getting too dangerous to keep the city’s police force that close to its biggest criminals. Not that it changed much. 

“That way,” Sehun whispers when they reach a crossroad. 

Jongdae glances at the tunnel stretching at his feet, then at its right and left arms. Sehun is pointing at the right portion, and Jongdae nods shortly before following it. He listens to their feet on the wet floor as he deems the police station close. The silence is quite resting, if he had to be honest, so he happily feeds on it instead of spreading his senses around him. He’s been running on only a few hours of sleep since a couple of days already. He knows his limits, and they are currently very close. It feels like an odd moment, an odd place, to take a break, but it’s the quieter Jongdae’s gotten in what feels like ages. So he takes it all in, the silence _and_ Sehun’s heartbeat. 

“I’m sorry for bailing out earlier,” Sehun says. “I’m glad you managed to get the boy out of there.”

Jongdae looks over his shoulder again, taken aback, but Sehun avoids his gaze. 

“It’s okay,” Jongdae finally says. “I’m getting used to it.”

He meant the last words to come out like a joke, but when they clash on the silt-covered walls, they sound bitter, almost toxic. He also means to apologize but the words never actually reach his mouth. Instead, he listens closely to Sehun’s heart, his curiosity peeking out. Sehun’s heart beat doesn’t break its regularity. 

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” Sehun mumbles. 

Jongdae stops dead in his tracks. He whirls around, and Sehun almost knocks into him. He stops just in time though, and takes a step back for good measure. 

“You know what, maybe I would if you’d explain me,” Jongdae snaps. “And for fuck’s sake, stop stepping away like that. Do you really think I’d use my powers against you?”

“Of course not. I just don’t want you to look for an answer in my head.”

Jongdae blinks. Sehun’s eyes harden. 

“In fact, I don’t want you to see what’s inside my head at all.”

Sehun makes to walk around Jongdae and set on again, but Jongdae plants himself firmly and blocks the way. Sehun looks down and they exchange a look. 

“Tell me what happened,” Jongdae says. 

Once again, his voice comes our harsher than what he meant to, but he doesn’t step back or regret it. Sehun looks into his face, his own features still partially hidden by his mask, and his heart gives a start which they both hear loud and clear. 

“Tell me,” Jongdae repeats. 

“I died,” Sehun says. His heart speeds up, slightly but noticeably. “And I came back.”

“How?”

“Now’s not really the time, Jongdae. We need to stop Thorne.”

He walks around Jongdae and shoves him away with a bump of his shoulder to clear the way. He sets off with long strides without even a glance above his shoulder, and Jongdae immediately trails after him. 

“What on Earth makes you think I don’t need to know?” he hisses. 

He reaches out to grab Sehun by the shoulder and stop him, but the latter probably sensed him, because he whirls around and snatches his hand away.

“Don’t,” Sehun thunders. 

“Just fucking tell me! I spent five years thinking you were dead, thinking I was too late!” Jongdae’s sight flashes red, and he clenches his fist as a flaring shot of anger takes over his body. “ _God_ , Sehun! I thought I let you die!”

“Didn’t make the guilt too hard though, uh? Or you would have gone and actually avenged me!”

This comes out like a blow, and Jongdae feels every second of it. He half expects his skin to bloom with bruises after how loudly and sharply Sehun’s voice hit him. The slight discomfort left in his back by all the digging Dahye’s done with her knife to take out the bullet suddenly comes back in full power, and Jongdae feels like he’s been shot again. This time it’s his own heart that takes over the gloomy silence of the sewers. 

“Do you _really_ think I didn’t consider it?” he snaps. “You say I don’t understand, but neither do you!” His voice feels like sandpaper in his throat. “I’ve dreamed about it. For days – for _months_ all I could think about was breaking into the asylum and cut his throat open. I’d lost you because _he_ took you away from me and I wanted to kill him for that so bad.”

Sehun remains silent, still. His eyes, though, don’t leave Jongdae’s as they take him in, scrutinizing, and almost hungry. Jongdae wants to punch him so bad for not understanding. Or maybe he wants to punch _himself_ for the poisonous words he thought he had buried long ago now flooding his mouth.

“It scared me so much,” he continues. “ _That_ ’s why I quit being Alpha. I was afraid that I would end up killing, and I knew that if I crossed that line, I’d never stop crossing it.”

The costume, the cape, they were weapons, and he fully realized it one second too late. Maybe his mourning would have been easier if Jongdae had been just a plain human, maybe he would have cried and been depressed, and nurtured a blazing need for revenge, but that would have been it. He wouldn’t have been able to take it farther. But Jongdae’s not human, he can mess up with brains, he can tweak waves, and he can kill a man with the smallest push. And god knows he would have done it. He wishes it was a matter of morals, or what is right and what is not, he wishes he could have been this good, but it’s not the case. Jongdae is obviously not above the many criminals he put in jail.

“Do you remember the case we were working on five years ago?” Sehun asks, thus breaking the silence. “About the deaths with that mysterious poison in their veins?”

Jongdae looks up, surprised. He nods. Of course he does. A few criminals from the lowest rank in the food chain went crazy, and they were literally unstoppable – as in bulletproof and incredibly strong. That only lasted for a couple of hours though, because it always ended with their brains liquefying and dripping from their eyes, noses and ears. Each autopsy revealed traces of an unknown mix of chemicals that the doctors never managed to link to anything, or anyone.

“We didn’t solve it,” Jongdae says. “It stopped after a while.”

Sehun snorts, but he doesn’t react to Jongdae’s questioning eyes. 

“No, it didn’t. It was just more discreet. Well, we were right to think Thorne had something to do with it though. The serum was stocked in the warehouse. It was dying from the blast or surviving and having my brain turn to jelly a few hours later, so I took it. Spoiler alert, it saved me and my brain never turned to jelly.”

Jongdae freezes.

“What?”

Sehun shrugs. 

“That’s how I survived.” His voice is so blank, so detached, that his words struggle to make sense in Jongdae’s mind. “We should hurry now,” Sehun adds. 

He turns around, ever so silent, and walks deeper into the tunnel, Jongdae’s eyes following him with disbelief. He takes him a couple of seconds to break free from his confusion, and he immediately dashes off to join Sehun. 

“Thorne was behind those deaths?” he asks, his mind working so hard on putting back together the pieces. 

“Are you really surprised? It was chaotic and messy. Of course he was behind that.”

“And?” Jongdae questions. “Do you know why? What happened next? I mean - _Sehun_!” he hisses, angry. 

Sehun looks at him over his shoulder, his eyes cold and provocative. 

“Don’t make me bail out on you again,” he says. 

Jongdae’s heart misses a bit and the blood in his veins turns to ice. He should be used to it by now. It’s always the same pattern. He watches Sehun, so different, and he thinks he catches pieces of the man he was before, so Jongdae starts hoping. He starts digging, spotting old habits coming back to life, and he thinks he can feel it, that old bound coming back between him and Sehun. But it always – always – crumbles to pieces, because Sehun isn’t… There’s no connection between them anymore. 

“Like I said,” Jongdae snaps back. “I’m getting used to it.”

He looks away, not wanting to see Sehun’s reactions and sets off again. He bypasses Sehun, keeping an obvious safe distance between them. If Sehun doesn’t even want to trust him, then Jongdae will stop trying. He has enough pressing matters at hand, and not adding Sehun to the list would actually be a good thing. Then so be it. 

His anger doesn’t diminish, even with Sehun’s footsteps following him, so he keeps walking deeper into the tunnel in silence. It’s only when he spots another smaller tunnel connecting with the one they currently are that he forces his raging temper, still beating against his temples, to lower to regain his focus. He stops and scans the thick darkness patching the end of the tunnel. If his calculations are correct, this should be the connection with the morgue, and he hopes it is, because he can’t pick up anything that would confirm his belief. Sehun stop next to him and puts a glove hand on the edge of the tunnel as he scrunches up his nose. 

“It smells disgusting,” he says, stating the obvious. 

“It smells like sewers,” Jongdae mumbles. 

He hauls himself on the tunnel, whose smaller circumference forces him to slightly bend. He doesn’t spare a look at Sehun before moving deeper into the tunnel. Sehun’s clothes ruffle behind him, soon followed by a splashing sound and a groan. Jongdae snorts as he pictures Sehun stepping into one of those muddy silt puddles that Jongdae managed to avoid up to this point. 

“Fuck you, Jongdae,” he hears Sehun say in a low voice.

Jongdae allows himself a tiny smile, but he doesn’t answer to Sehun’s provocation. Keeping his focus on their advance is a better idea, especially now that the tunnel is curving up, taking them closer to the surface. The ground is slippery and mushy under his soles, which, despite being risky, is good news, because it looks more and more like a discharge tunnel. 

“It’s huge,” Sehun says behind him. “Man, I wonder what they used to throw in there.”

“Organs, bodies, whatever.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not true,” Sehun answers, but there’s a certain tension in his voice. 

Jongdae glances over his shoulder just in time to see Sehun cautiously step away from the wall with a wary look at the sludge tainting it. Jongdae sneers which draws Sehun’s attention on him. He earns himself a glare from the latter, before Sehun’s eyes open wide and he reaches out. 

“Hey, careful!”

Sehun’s fingers graze Jongdae’s sleeves without actually closing around his wrist, but his cry is enough in itself to make Jongdae stop in his tracks. His heart speeding up in his chest, he turns around and finds himself staring at a solid piece of wall closing the tunnel and bringing it to its end. Jongdae makes a face at the filamentous slit just a few inches from him. Sehun joins him. 

“Close call,” he snickers. 

Jongdae looks at him, meaning to throw him a nicely thought-out comeback, but the realization that Sehun is standing straight stops him. Glancing at the ceiling above Sehun, he notices a gap and a grating just within arm reach. The sickly white ceiling stained by moist above the grating looks terribly welcoming.

“The morgue,” Jongdae says as he too straightens up. 

They both stand under the grating in silence. Jongdae deploys his senses above his head, and his mind slowly draws a mental image of the room they’re about to slip in. There’s no one guarding it, which is a miracle considering the huge activity he picks up in the rest of the building. Between radio frequencies buzzing around, voices mingling and old, thin walls catching the slightest vibrations, it’s almost painful to search through the place. He glances at Sehun who also has his head thrown back, his eyes narrowed at the grating, determined. 

He’s the one reaching out to close his fingers around the bars, Jongdae being too small, and Sehun barely has to push to pull out the grating. He makes it slide on the tiled floor to clear the way into the morgue. The metal grates in a sinister, awfully loud way, and both Sehun and Jongdae stop breathing. They exchange a glance, Sehun’s fingers still secured around the grating, and wait for a few minutes in perfect stillness. Then Jongdae slightly nods, and Sehun lets go of the grating. He grabs the edge of the gap and hauls himself into the morgue. Jongdae scans the tunnel on his left one last time, then jumps up and grabs the edge of the gap. 

When he gets back on his feet, Sehun is already searching through the old morgue, a distant interest in his dark eyes. The place looks like it has been the stage of a huge fight: surgeon trolleys are lying on their sides, rusty surgical instruments all over the dirty floor, and there are a few dark stains on the large metallic table occupying the centre of the room that look awfully similar to dried blood. Sehun stops in front of the wall of mortuary drawers, most of them opened on darkness, and grabs the handle of a closed one. He pulls on it. The hinges give way, snap with a sharp sound, and the door ends up in Sehun’s hand. Far from being impressed, Sehun puts it on a table next to him and pulls out the sliding table. It comes out with a low grating sound and stops abruptly. The sheet that was still on the table opens silently, curls in thin air and slowly falls down towards the floor. 

Sehun glances at Jongdae. 

“The place was shut down after the Bloody Uprisings,” he says, unfazed. “My dad died during them.”

The sheet crumples at his feet, and Sehun looks away to scan the rest of the room. Jongdae desperately tries to keep at bay the memory of a sobbing Sehun sharing stories from his fucked up childhood, and it has him walking to the door. He breathes in and listens closely, but just like the morgue, the whole floor seems to be empty. They’re still underground after all, so Jongdae reckons Thorne kept his men on the higher floors. He glances at the ceiling, at the noises and vibrations he’s getting and turns back to Sehun. The latter is standing in the middle of the room, his attention already on Jongdae. 

“And now?” he asks. 

Jongdae peeks in the hallway again and at the broken pieces of furniture blocking some of the doors, and decides against it. He raises his eyes and flashes a smile when they land on a large air vent. Sehun follows his gaze and sighs. 

“Still better than the sewers, I guess,” he grumbles. 

Jongdae doesn’t raise Sehun’s remark, already calculating. He eyes the vent, then the table in the centre of the room. This should be enough. 

He walks to it and grabs it, intending to carry it under the air vent, but the table barely moves and creaks indignantly. Sehun turns to Jongdae with a raised eyebrow, and Jongdae internally swears when he looks down only to see the table’s feet screwed to the tiled floor. 

“What were they afraid of,” he grumbles as he pulls a bit harder on the table. The four screws pop in unison. “Dead bodies stealing their freaking table?” 

Sehun snorts. He joins Jongdae and grabs the opposite side of the table so that it wouldn’t grate against the floor. Together, they move it to the wall. Jongdae hops on it, carefully avoids the dark stains and grabs the air vent. The screws don’t resist much either, and they fall on the tiled floor beneath Jongdae with almost musical clinking sounds. He takes out the vent and holds it out for Sehun, who silently puts it away. 

Jongdae breathes in dust and musty smells as he checks the inside of the air duct, palming the surface to make sure it won’t collapse under them. It seems as safe as it could be, and it’s not like they have any other choice anyway. So Jongdae stretches his arms inside the duct and transfers his weight on his elbows to haul himself inside the pipe. Sehun signs loudly behind him, but he climbs the table just the same. Jongdae crawls over a few feet then stop to look over his shoulder. 

Sehun wriggles his legs in the duct then looks up at Jongdae. 

“Let’s get going,” he says. His voice bumps on the conduit and all around them, and they both wince. 

“Wait,” Jongdae whispers. He lowers his head and presses a finger against his earpiece. “Jongin, everything okay?”

It takes two scary seconds for Jongin’s voice to sizzle in his ear. 

“Yeah, we’re good.” 

Jongdae allows himself a short smile before he opens another communication. 

“Heize?” he asks. 

She answers right away. “Everything’s great here. I’m leaving the school. I didn’t find Chanyeol’s body, so I think he’s okay. He probably went back to the basement.” 

“Oh, not so stupid Park,” Sehun marvels behind Jongdae. 

“I’m shutting our com here, Heize. We’re inside the station. Check on Jongin and Kyungsoo regularly please.”

“Of course. Be careful.”

Jongdae nods as though she could hear him. He looks up at the duct spreading in front of him and breathes in – which turns out to be a bad idea as he inhales too much dust for his own good – and starts crawling, Sehun on his tail. 

It’s even worse than the sewers. Despite being large enough to allow them to handle the turns quite easily, the conduit is still pretty confined. They reach the end of their tunnel with the only way possible being up to another branch of the tunnel. Jongdae almost freaks out when he realizes that the conduit is too small to allow him to switch to a standing position, but after an intense wriggling session, he manages to get on his knees and haul himself into the next duct. He patiently waits there while Sehun goes through the same struggle, his heart still distraught in his chest. 

“This is _not_ for tall people,” Sehun groans once he finally joins Jongdae. 

Sweat is glistening, sweat on his forehead gluing his long dark locks together, and there’s dust all over him. Jongdae probably doesn’t look any better, but the air duct at least offers them a relative safety while they go deeper into the station. It’s not long before they stumble upon the first guards, and suddenly hyper aware of the slightest ruffling of their clothes, Jongdae freezes in the conduit. He can hear the men – two judging by the voices – walking down the hallway beneath the air duct, and shuffling their feet. They’re both wearing talkie-walkies because Jongdae can hear them buzz with the constant flow of waves. Guns are clicking, bulletproof jackets are scratching against clothes and lips open on long sentences. They’re talking about food. Jongdae can’t believe his ears. 

He looks up to the conduit before him and bites his lips. They’re moving towards the largest source of noise in the building, and if he stops every time someone walks under the air duct, it’ll take them two days to reach Thorne, wherever he is. He glances at Sehun, who’s frowning at him, and internally sighs. He holds his breath and starts crawling again, slowly and silently. 

He loses track of time as they keep crawling, checking through every air vent they stumble upon for a safe room, or a trace of Thorne. Jongdae knows Sehun is probably listening as hard as him, but with all those mercenaries, all that constant background noise, this turns out harder than what it should be. 

They’ve just reached the umpteenth crossroad, which comes with another air vent, when Thorne’s name reaches their ears. 

“I heard he’s gonna get his ass kicked,” a male voice says. 

Someone snickers. 

“Thorne? His ass kicked by some politician? Come on, Yang thinks he can handle him like one of his opponents, but the Bomber is a crazy motherfucker. He’ll blow our dear Mayor up, you’ll see.”

Jongdae looks over his shoulder. It’s pretty obvious from the icy anger spreading over Sehun’s face that the latter also hears the conversation. 

“I don’t know about that, man…”

“Yeah? Well, why don’t we go see that meeting, uh? Fifty bucks Thorne shuts the politico’s trap.”

“We’re not supposed to go there, we’re on watch duty…”

“Ha! Afraid to lose?”

“You know what, fuck you. Let’s go. I hope you have those fifty bucks on you, pal.”

Said pal chuckles and answers with a teasing voice as he and his friend set off in a slow pace. Jongdae looks over his shoulder, and Sehun meets his eyes with a pressing and wordless order to start crawling again. Jongdae glares at him, hoping it will be enough to calm him down and remind him to keep quiet. He doesn’t fancy the idea of Sehun losing it again and jumping into a crowd of heavily armed mercenaries. He does heal from pretty much any injury, but that doesn’t cancel the pain. Sehun aggressively gestures at the conduit as the two men walk away. Their footsteps suddenly get oddly rhythmic. They’re going down some stairs. 

Jongdae closes his eyes, focusing on the hallway under him. It seems to be leading in a much larger room slightly further down, and from what he’s getting, _that_ room is packed. The hallway seems empty now that the two men have deserted it. It might not be the case for long though, so Jongdae jumps on the occasion. He blatantly ignores Sehun, who has started wriggling behind him to try and slip before him, and presses a hand against the air vent. He gives one sharp push, and the piece of metal immediately gives way with a low squeaking sound. Wincing, Jongdae slips it back inside the duct before turning back to the opening. Holding his breath, he takes a peek at the hallway. Empty. 

Behind him, Sehun has stopped wriggling to watch, intrigued. When Jongdae slips his head back into the duct, he glances at Sehun and presses a finger against his lips to gesture him to keep quiet – to which Sehun gives him an obvious eye roll. Internally groaning, Jongdae squirms in the conduit until he manages to slide his legs out of it. He lets gravity do its work and falls quietly on the warped wooden floor. His cape, which was half stuck in the conduit while he was wriggling his lower body out of it flits around him before closing on his body. His heart beating loudly in his chest, Jongdae slowly stands up, his eyes glued to the end of the hallway. 

The Bottoms’ old police station was built from an abandoned train station. The main hall, which had the policemen’s desks organized in an open-plan space was the centre of the action, and from the look of it, it is now the beating heart of Thorne’s headquarters. Jongdae stands on tiptoe to try and peek into the circular room spreading at the foot of the large stairs the two mercenaries took while Sehun gracefully lands behind him. Thorne is down there, he’s sure of it. They just need a better look at the room and the number of men he currently has with him. And Jongdae still hopes to get some explanations about Yang Hyunsuk’s – Mayor of Port Ville – implications with Thorne.

“And now?” Sehun asks in a whisper-like voice. 

Jongdae points at the glazed door on the left of the wall. Realization flashes through Sehun’s eyes and he nods erratically before bending down and rushing to the room. Jongdae follows him there. He quietly closes the door behind him then turns to the rest of the room. 

It probably used to look like a small office back then, with the wooden desk facing the door and several racks lined up behind him. Now it looks like a rubbish tip. The paint on the walls is cracked, dirty, and a fair amount of beer bottles lie on the floor. Jongdae spots a used condom in what looks like a nest of smelly blankets in a corner, and he makes a face. There’s also a large hole in the wall across from him that Sehun is currently checking. He scrunches up his nose at the rusty pipes on the other side and looks down the hole. 

“I’m pretty sure this leads to the basement,” he hums, thinking.

When Sehun pulls out, tiny chunks of the wall crumble down the hole, and Jongdae is suddenly struck with the image of the whole place collapsing on them. He has to refrain himself from grabbing Sehun and pulling him away from that hole. At least, the office was meant to look out onto the main room, which means that there are three windows – which have long lost their panes – taking most of the front wall. And it is definitely a nice spot to spy on the main room. 

After pressing himself in the corner of the office, Jongdae scans the room below a first time. His blood turns to ice when his eyes land on a very peculiar silhouette. He would recognize it in a blink of an eye. It’s only one body in the middle of two dozens of others, but it’s so easy to overlook the mercenaries when you have Thorne sitting on a desk and dangling his legs, obviously enjoying himself. 

Jongdae glances at Sehun, who is huddled in the other corner, his eyes glimmering with rage.

Down below, Thorne is whistling a melody which sounds really close to the Beauty and the Beast Belle song while two of his men set up a large laptop on the desk before him. He doesn’t move, except from the regular dangling of his legs, like a ticking clock, as one of the two men leans over the laptop. There are a few clicking sound, a short typing involved, and the bright screen suddenly turns dark, its glow even more gloomy and almost morbid in the abandoned police station. Thorne’s legs stop dangling.

“Finally answering my calls, I see,” a low voice says, its intonations deformed by the low quality conference call. “What, do you need some help now?” it says sarcastically. 

Thorne chuckles. 

“ _Oh I just can’t wait to be king_ ,” he singsongs, bobbing his head right and left. 

“Will you _stop_ with the Disney songs?” the voice hisses. 

Thorne doesn’t say anything, but the tension in the room tightens. He’s facing the laptop, but turning his back to Sehun and Jongdae’s vantage point. They do have, though, quite the view over the laptop’s screen, and Jongdae must admit that it’s one thing to hear that the mayor of the city you live in is actually a sell-out, it’s definitely another one to witness it. Yang Hyunsuk doesn’t have that friendly smile he always sports for political events, or those warm comprehensive eyes he always makes sure to flash to the cameras while he pays tribute to some random people who died in the streets – instead he’s wearing a patronizing snarl like a weapon and his eyes are so cold that the pixels can’t even soften them. 

“I bet you’re having the time of your life, Thorne” the mayor says. “Pulling a stunt like that… I should just kill you.”

Thorne gives another chuckle and starts dangling his legs again. 

“I am quite enjoying myself indeed.” He pauses and adds in a mumble. “ _Everybody wants to be a cat…_ ”

“For fuck’s sake,” the mayor groans. “This was never part of the plan. You’re lucky I own half of the police force of that city and that we have enough men for your shitty plan. It would have just fallen through without me.”

Thorne stops dangling his legs once again. He straightens up slightly on the desk, and the closest mercenaries take a cautious step back. 

“You know what? I am tired of playing with you,” Thorne sighs. “You’re not funny anymore. You keep giving me orders and expecting me to follow them.”

“Oh we’re not playing Thorne. I am the King of this city, you hear me? I was nice enough to let you have your fun, now you cut the shit. We have more important things to do.”

“He killed my daughter,” Thorne says. His voice has lost its usual singing intonations or drawling accents. It is now icy and scary. Some mercenaries exchange a few uneasy looks. “He killed my daughter and I want him to pay. I want him to watch while I spread chaos and make people crazy.” 

Jongdae looks at Sehun, but the latter doesn’t look back. His eyes harden more and more with every second passing by, and his face is now frozen in grimace of anger that honestly looks scary. Jongdae would want to say something, but he can’t think of anything, and he’s pretty sure that no words could be brought to life in the dryness of his mouth. Even breathing feels like swallowing blades. 

“I don’t give a fuck, you hear me? Your daughter was a whore.”

Thorne slowly crosses his arms on his chest. He shakes his head. 

“Oh, I’m so going to destroy you,” he muses. “It’s going to be unprecedented. Disney will write songs about it. I will blow up every effort you’ve ever made to control this city.”

“Yeah yeah,” Yang mocks him. “Now you’re going to send me back my men – because they’re mine remember? – and I’ll let you have your fun with the super hero kids if we catch them. But I want you off the radar again, do you hear me? You should have stayed in the asylum. You’re going to fuck up everything.”

Thorne hums. 

“Ah, yes. Your men, right? And your resources. Everything that you need to spread your little drug. You’re trusting them so much!” Thorne chuckle. “You’re making it so easy for me…”

He jumps off the desk, and the sudden gesture has everyone taking another step back. They’re not trying to be discreet about it anymore, and just like them, Jongdae can’t shake the feeling that something bad is about to happen. Thorne’s voice has an excited quality to it that sounds terribly wrong, especially after the coldness he was displaying a few moments earlier. 

“You see,” Thorne begins as he starts pacing in front of the laptop. “People tend to forget that my full name is actually _Mad_ Bomber so it always comes out as a surprise when I do something crazy and explosive.”

He stops and turns towards the screen. Jongdae tenses. He glances at Sehun, whose eyes have lost a bit of their bloodlust flare for a confused bordering-on-anxious look. 

“Thorne,” Yang thunders, but even from the office, Jongdae can spot the nervousness spreading on his face. 

“We’re all crazy anyway,” Thorne says, his smile heavy in his voice. “There’s this one line that says it _oh_ so well! And it’s not even a song! It’s from a book!” he laughs as he starts fumbling through the inside pocket of his jacket. 

“Thorne, what the fuck are you doing?” 

Jongdae and Sehun’s eyes meet. They both step away from the windows, their heartbeats speeding up almost in unison. 

“Jongdae,” Sehun whispers. 

“Do you want to hear it?” Thorne singsongs below. He stops searching through his pocket as his hand suddenly stops. “It says – It says… _We all float down here, Georgie._ ”

He roars with laughter as he pulls out a small remote from his jacket which has only one button. Jongdae’s heart explodes in his chest as one of the mercenaries protest loudly and makes to walk to Thorne. The latter draws a gun from his belt and shoots him in the face. The mercenary’s cheek turns to bloody pulp and Thorne laughs louder. 

“That guy’s gonna know before us if it’s true!” he giggles. 

Sehun starts kicking the wall under the hole on Jongdae’s left. Jongdae rushes to him and hastily helps him widening the hole. Thorne’s laugh still rings through the room. 

“Now let’s see what you’ll do without your men and your resources,” he chuckles. 

It all happens in a flash. Sehun curses, throws himself against the wall and almost falls over as it crumbles away. He barely glances down before calling Jongdae’s name. Meanwhile, Thorne keeps laughing as he raises his arm. Someone fires and shoots him in the chest. Thorne still laughs. He presses the button, laughing. And everything blows up. 

Jongdae is falling in the hole. Pipe taps tear his costume and his flesh, irregularities stab him, and chunks of walls follow him in his fall. His hand hits something, and he hears his wrist joint dislocate. He lets out a groan, but before he can squeeze his arms against his torso, he lands harshly on a hard surface, Sehun sprawled on the floor just before him, bits and pieces of walls all around him as though he had flown through concrete and bricks – which is probably the case. The whole building shakes above their heads, it grumbles and roars and slowly crumble away. Jongdae hastily gets back on his feet, his eyes quickly taking in where they landed, and his heart almost explodes with relief when he spots the morgue’s door a few feet away. He grabs Sehun’s arm and pulls him up, wincing when he feels the latter’s shoulder much more flexible than it should be. The end of the hallway behind them collapse, and that seems to bring back Sehun to his senses. 

They dash off in one same movement towards the morgue. Jongdae reaches the door a fraction of second before Sehun, and he knocks it down with a push of his shoulder. There’s a cloud of white dust trailing after them as the building collapses all around them, shaken by several smaller explosions here and there. The morgue falls to pieces too as a wall starts crumbling down, taking the ceiling with it. Jongdae hurls himself forward. He hits the edge of the opening in the floor and moans as two of his ribs snap. The landing in the sewers a few feet under isn’t very soft either, but he quickly rolls away to avoid Sehun. The latter lands on his knees with a groan. 

They look up at each other, panting and both heavily bruised. Sehun raises a shaky hand to slowly slide the mask off his face. He lets it dangle from one of his ears and breathes in deeply. Jongdae watches, noticing the unusual bump on his nose, the blood trickling from it and following the soft curves of his lips. Above their heads, the police station is still collapsing. 

“He’s dead,” Jongdae finally says. Thorne’s laugh keeps replaying in his head. “He’s dead…”

_We all float down here_. Jongdae throws an uneasy look at the tunnel on his left. 

Sehun wipes his chin and frowns at the blood on his sleeve. He palms his nose with a hand and snaps it back into place. 

“He was working for the mayor,” he says. He looks up, and upon seeing the lack of reaction from Jongdae, his eyes harden. “I thought Thorne was the one behind that new drug taking over the Bottoms. I investigated, I had proofs… But he was just a guaranty for the mayor” he trails off and his lips twitch before he looks away, a blank look in his eyes. “I know, I _know_. He might have been behind that too,” he whispers in a breathy voice. 

Jongdae, for once, is too busy replaying the video conference in his mind to worry about Sehun’s nonsense whispering. Feeling like he’s been dumped into icy water, he looks up at Sehun, mouth agape. 

“Sehun,” he says, but Sehun doesn’t react. “Sehun!”

Sehun’s head snap up towards him. 

“ _What?_ ” he hisses. 

“Do you remember what he said? About owning the police?”

Sehun frowns. Jongdae remembers though. 

_You’re lucky I own half of the police force of that city._

The police force. Half of it. Policemen that are currently about to enter the Bottom because Jongdae asked Heize to call Insung. Flashes of Dahye’s colleagues’s faces flash through his mind, from Jihoon and Seulgi to Frank and Insung, and he wonders with bitterness who’s been making dirty money all this time. 

“Come on, don’t be naïve,” Sehun says, unfazed. “Of course there are dirty cops. Maybe more than what we thought, but who cares.” 

He gets back on his feet and fixes his shoulder. 

“Where are you going? We have to warn them!” 

Jongdae hastily jumps back on his feet too, and mindlessly snaps his wrist back into his joint. Sehun throws him a look that says it all, and Jongdae feels his panic swell even more in his chest. 

“No,” he stutters. “I need your help. You – You have to help me with that, and then I’ll help you take care of the mayor.”

Sehun freezes, his hand inches away from his facial mask. He looks into Jongdae’s face, and Jongdae steps closer. 

“I need you,” he begs. “Please.”

Sehun keeps staring without even blinking. There are no explosions, no collapsing above their heads anymore, but there’s probably a fire or two heating up the night. The last fire Jongdae saw was the one that engulfed the warehouse five years ago. There’s a little voice in his head that immediately refutes with the memory of Sehun blowing up a truck with a bazooka a few days ago. It feels like ages. It feels like two different Sehun and Jongdae. 

Sehun’s eyes lower to Jongdae’s lips, but it’s so fleeting that Jongdae takes it for another unwanted burst of his memory due to his confused, probably concussion-induced, thinking. 

“Okay,” Sehun finally gives in. He blinks away and puts the mask back on his face before adjusting his hood. His eyes fall back on Jongdae. “I think you should update the troops.”

Jongdae nods, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He raises a shaking hand while still making sure to keep the eye contact with Sehun, who is now wiping the dust from his clothes, and presses his finger against his earpiece. 

 

 

“Thorne is dead,” Jongin repeats, dumbfounded.

Kyungsoo looks away from the latter to glance at Lexie, who is still sitting on a stool just next to him. The friendly smile she had a couple of seconds earlier while she was chatting with him is long gone, now replaced by a pleased smirk. She stops drumming her fingers on the cracked surface of the bar and looks over Kyungsoo’s shoulder. The latter turns around on his stool and meets Jongin’s eyes, who looks as anxious as Kyungsoo himself is starting to feel. 

“Is he now?” Pavoni says, delighted. “Excellent. He should have known better. No one kills one of us and survives.”

“This would make a beautiful eulogy,” Lexie says in her honey voice. 

Kyungsoo and Jongin keep looking at each other. Jongin is sitting on another stool, his hoodie and shirt rolled up around his neck so his wounded arm would be free. Baekhyun has been working on it since Alpha, Heize and that hooded guy left, long fingers cleaning the blood and bandaging Jongin’s biceps. Now he’s stopped moving, those very same fingers frozen in mid-air as his dark, unreadable eyes stay on Lexie. Kyungsoo is suddenly struck by the images of those hands, which he found quite beautiful a couple of minutes ago, wrapped around a neck. 

“He blew himself up,” Jongin says, slightly frowning. He’s obviously still listening to whatever is being said in his earpiece.

Pavoni smiles, grabs his hat – that he had put on the bar – and puts it back on his head. 

“I guess that concludes the day,” he says, in a cheer, delighted voice. “I’ll be sleeping like a kitten tonight.” He glances at Lexie. “Pull out our men and let’s go home. The mayor can do whatever the fuck he wants, I don’t care. I am actually pleased to have a new enemy. Beaulieu was getting old anyway.”

Lexie slips down from her stool with grace. She smiles, icy blue eyes sparkling. 

“Yes sir,” she simpers. 

Kyungsoo was born and raised in Port Ville. His parents grew up here too. His family’s been stuck in this rat hole for generations, and there’s only one rule that makes it through the mess of this city. His father’s always told him, with a shadow in his eyes and a slight shake of his head, to always expect the worst, because chances are, it will happen. Maybe Kyungsoo’s spent too much time in college and he let himself get fooled. He forgot the rule for a second and now it’s coming back to bite him in the –

“Now, now,” Lexie tells Baekhyun. “Don’t forget our promise.”

Kyungsoo throws himself towards one of the many shards of glass left on the bar just as Baekhyun wraps an arm around Jongin’s shoulders to push him aside. He stretches out his other arm quickly and the gesture draws out a small gun that was concealed under his sleeve. His fingers close on it and he pulls the trigger before Kyungsoo even grabs his makeshift weapon. Jongin gasps loudly, his back hitting the bar, as Pavoni’s body falls to the floor. 

Kyungsoo almost falls from his stool, but he manages to keep his balance with his twisted ankle on the floor. Slightly swaying, he still raises the shard of glass above his head and aims at Lexie’s back. _Always expect the worst_ , his father’s voice says in his head again, and to Kyungsoo’s great displeasure, his father is right – again. 

Lexie grabs his wrist then pins it violently to the bar. Kyungsoo gasps in pain and lets go of the shard. Not even a second later, Lexie is driving a knife through his sleeve thus successfully nailing his arm to the wood. Kyungsoo glares at her. 

“You have guts,” she tells him with a big friendly smile. “I like you.”

She makes to ruffle his hair, but Kyungsoo pulls away. 

“Fuck you,” he hisses. 

She smiles, and shrugs before turning to Baekhyun, whose gun has long disappeared under his sleeve again. Kyungsoo closes his free hand around the handle of the knife – golden-coloured, _of course_ \- and tries to pulls it out, groaning. D 

“What the _fuck_?” Jongin blurts as he eyes Pavoni’s body. 

Baekhyun offers his hand to Lexie, who grabs it with a smile before stepping over her ex-boss’s body, unfazed. She gestures towards the door and Baekhyun nods before turning on his heels and stepping out of the pub. Putting her hands on her hips, Lexie draws back her attention on Jongin and Kyungsoo. 

“This is where we part ways,” she says with a blinding smile. “Please, make sure to tell our common friend that I kept my words and did not injure you.” Her eyes fall on Jongin’s bandaged arm. “I would write him a thank you note for taking care of my dirty work, but I’m afraid I’ll be too busy leading _my_ men, so make sure you tell him how grateful I am.”

“He’ll catch you,” Kyungsoo tells her. “And he’ll stop you.”

“Oh, honey,” she says. “You’re so sweet.”

She blows him a kiss, waves at Jongin and walks out of the room without a single glance over her shoulder. They both distinctively hear the door of the pub open, and some voices erupt on the outside, but as much as Kyungsoo would like to believe Pavoni’s men wouldn’t accept this coup, he doesn’t have much hope. She probably had them on her side all along. 

His eyes unintentionally fall on the Italian mob leader’s body, and his stomach tenses when he spots the bloody hole between his two eyes, and the frozen pleased smile on his lips. Looking away, he tries to pull out the knife again, his whole skin felling itchy and uncomfortable. 

“Wait, I – I’m gonna help you…” 

Kyungsoo looks at Jongin, who looks just as cautiously at Pavoni’s body as he gets down from his stool. He rolls down his shirt, slips his arm back into the sleeve and adjusts his hoodie as he bypasses the body. Kyungsoo can’t help but think that he looks like a kid trying to look like an adult. Kyungsoo’s not the only one completely overrun at least.

“Did they tell you something else? Does Alpha know Heize found your friend?” he asks. 

Jongin nods as he closes his hands around the knife. 

“Yes, she told him.” He scrunches up his nose with a slight wince as he tugs on the knife. “Apparently the PVPD is even dirtier than we all thought and those scumbags work for the mayor.” He grits his teeth and pulls hard. The knife comes out with a splinter of wood. “Heize told Alpha that the Commissioner planned to divide his forces to enter in the Bottoms through the three bridges and Alpha kind of freaked out. He asked her to call someone she really trusted in the PVPD and tell them.”

Kyungsoo watches Jongin, frozen. Realization finally floods Jongin’s face and he parts his lips in a silent gasp. 

“You’re Insung’s son,” he states.

“My dad’s gonna be there,” Kyungsoo nods, his voice slightly shaking. “He’s probably going to enter through Main Bridge…”

“He’ll be warned,” Jongin tries to reassure him. The lack of colours on his face doesn’t help though. “Heize will have told him. She’s amazing and –”

“How is he supposed to know who’s dirty though? What if they just receive the order to shoot at will? If they’re so many of them, how being warned will help him stay safe?” Kyungsoo freaks out. 

His breathing gets erratic and not as efficient as it should be. He winces and presses a hand against his chest, cold sweat trickling down his forehead. Jongin puts a hand on his shoulder, but he startles before he can speak. Kyungsoo catches the worried look he throws him before he puts a finger in his ear. 

“We’re here, we’re here,” he says hastily. “We … well, we couldn’t really speak? Lexie had Pavoni killed.” Jongin pauses and exchanges another look with Kyungsoo. His hand presses hard on Kyungsoo’s shoulder when he has to breath out, and goes back to being light when he inhales. “No, no, we’re okay she – yes she left us in the pub. Uh. You sure?” 

Jongin nods, and Kyungsoo thinks it’s stupid. Is Alpha supposed to know Jongin just approved whatever he just said? He takes another deep breath. Somehow Jongin’s hand turns to be helpful as Kyungsoo follows the changes of pressure to settle down his breathing. 

“Okay,” Jongin adds. “Copy that.”

He hasn’t even pulled out his finger that Kyungsoo scoots closer on stool, pressing. 

“So? What did he say?”

“He wants us to lock ourselves in the pub and wait until it’s over. He’s going to Misaine Bridge with the Hood to make sure nothing bad happens. Heize and Chanyeol are going to Northill Bridge.”

Kyungsoo nods. It makes sense. Well, he guesses it does. He doesn’t seem to be able to think right now. 

“Who’s going to Main Bridge?” he asks. 

Jongin hesitates, which doesn’t seem to be a good sign at all. 

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo thunders. 

Jongin immediately gives in. 

“No one. You’re right, your father’s going in through that bridge, and they trust him so…”

Kyungsoo blinks. Growing up in Port Ville can be a good thing, because it makes you aware and it teaches you how to fight back. There are some lessons that Kyungsoo wishes he didn’t learn though, and at the top of the list is probably his father’s lesson. _Always expects the worst._

“We’re not staying here,” Kyungsoo says. 

Jongin shakes his head. “Nope.” 

They stare at each other for a few seconds. Jongin lets out a little sigh. 

“I think I might have an idea.”

 

 

Misaine Bridge has been connecting the Bottoms to Port Ville for several centuries now. Being the oldest bridge out of the three linking the island to the coast, it is bound to display in its architecture some traces of the history of the city. It once was a proof of power and wealth, back when the city was one of the biggest trading ports of the country, which made it the most important monument of the city. Pieces were added to the original bridge regularly, pieces and sculptures that had been ordered to some new well-famous artists, and it didn’t take long for Misaine Bridge to become the most expensive and valued infrastructure in Port Ville. Its history is still very known in the city, whether it’s for the large pillars like towers at each end on which maps of Port Ville were carved every twenty years for a century, or its more sinister participation in the numerous deaths by hunger at the end of the sixteenth century. 

In Port Ville’s daily modern life though, it is quite obvious that Misaine bridge has lost its glow. No one stops to glance at the art it is covered with anymore, and people don’t avoid it just because it was once used as a separation between the wealthy and the fishermen, who were not allowed to cross it back to the centre if they didn’t have the required amount of fish. Misaine Bridge is dull now, dirty, covered with graffitis. On the right railing, the one that opens on the sea, names have been scribbled on the metal, only traces of people who jumped into the dark cold waters. No one has ever jumped over the left railing. No one has ever chosen Port Ville’s bay as their last home, and Misaine Bridge now stands in Port Ville’s horizon as the tangible limit between the dying city and the freedom of the sea. The glory is long gone. 

_I will blow up every effort you’ve ever made to control this city.  
We all float down here._

Jongdae’s breath hitches in the back of his throat as he runs along the low wall separating the lanes on the bridge. A few cars have been messily parked in the middle of the bridge, as a makeshift roadblock, and on the other side of it, around a hundred of policemen are walking towards the Bottoms. 

“Looks like the cavalry’s there,” Sehun says, running next to Jongdae. 

He slows down, to Jongdae’s annoyance. When he turns around to throw him a biting remark, Sehun glares at him over his mask. 

“Thorne is _dead_ , Jongdae. Those cops have been inside the PVDD for months, some even years, why would they go crazy now?”

Jongdae synchronizes his strides to Sehun’s. The truth is, he has no idea what to answer, but his knotted stomach and his worried instincts are more than enough for him to be on the lookout. 

“I just have a bad feeling,” he mumbles. 

Sehun shrugs but doesn’t say anything else, to which Jongdae is grateful. He has shown a cold-hearted detachment since they crawled out of the sewers, dirty and still bruised, and it makes Jongdae jittery. At least Sehun has accepted to come with him, and Jongdae knows - _hopes_ \- that if something does happen, the risk of the people living in the Bottoms getting hurt will be enough to bring Sehun back to his senses. 

Sehun trots past Jongdae and hops on one of the cars. He sits down on the roof and crosses his legs. Jongdae jumps next to him. 

“We’re on Northill Bridge,” Dahye’s voice cracks in his ear. “The group is led by Kim Boah. I think yours will be – ”

“Frank,” Jongdae interrupts. 

Now barely a few feet away from the roadblock, the policemen are slowing down, most of them whispering and gasping at Jongdae and Sehun. Leading them, with the same surly look on his face, Frank makes an obvious disappointed face as he looks up at Jongdae. It takes the latter a couple of seconds to remember that Frank is seeing Alpha, and not Dahye’s best friend right now, and that he never really liked Alpha. Not at all. 

“Aw man,” Frank sighs, gesturing to his troop to stop. “So you really are back. I was hoping for an unfounded rumour.”

Sehun snorts next to him, and Jongdae slightly shoves him with the tip of his shoe. Sehun moves away and looks up at Jongdae, glaring. 

“So did you just stop by to say hi?” Frank continues. 

Jongdae shakes his head and jumps off the car. 

“Didn’t Insung contact you?” he asks, walking towards Frank who obviously tenses. 

There must be about a hundred of men and women behind Frank, and they’re all whispering, moving and breathing. The amount of information Jongdae picks up leaves him a bit overwhelmed, but he tries to keep it at bay by focusing on a few constant things such as his own breathing or Sehun’s beating heart. He does mindlessly check the buzzing coming from Frank’s radio though, thinking that there may have been a problem with their communications. He’s less than five steps away from the police officer when he hears it. A second radio frequency is lurking under the PVPD one. 

“Of course he did,” Frank snaps back. “But that’s none of your business. You have nothing to do here.”

Jongdae barely spares him a glance. He looks over his shoulder at Sehun, who’s still sitting on the car, and draws back his attention on Frank. It definitely comes from the latter. 

“I was the one who freed his son,” he answers in a distracted voice, thinking hard. 

He pushes harder and picks up the same frequency here and there in the crowd. His heart leaps into his throat and he throws another glance at Sehun. The latter slightly frowns this time. 

“And we’ll be the ones freeing the whole island,” Frank groans. “Go home before you get yourself hurt.” 

Jongdae takes in the man’s face, his grizzling stubble, his tired dimples and his grey eyes. He’s been Dahye’s partner for so long, he practically taught her how to be the amazing detective she is today. He was there for the last gang war, and he solved more cases than anyone else in the PVPD, Do Insung included. And he’s walking around with two radios. 

Jongdae’s blood boils in his veins. He jumps forward and grabs Frank’s collar with so much strength the fabric tears. He hears more than he sees every police officers pulling out their guns to aim at him, because he refuses to blink or even look away from Frank. 

“Oh, oh!” Sehun intervenes loudly as he jumps off the car. 

He’s between Frank and the rest of the PVPD in less than a heartbeat, his hands raised in a calming gesture. He looks over his shoulder at Jongdae. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” he hisses. 

“Yeah boy, what are you doing?” Frank asks.

His feet barely touch the concrete, but it doesn’t seem to unnerve him because he keeps flashing Jongdae a teasing smirk. Jongdae glares at him and pulls one of his hands away to rummage through Frank’s pocket. He finally finds what he’s looking for in one of his pant pockets, and his heart sinks when he pulls out a green radio. Avoiding Frank’s eyes, he raises it above his head for everyone to see. 

“Oh come _on_ ,” Sehun groans. 

From the corner of his eyes, Jongdae catches a few confused expressions, some shocked ones, others not so innocent, and his senses switch on alert mode. He does pick up the same frequency in the crowd, but he can’t tell who it comes from precisely. 

“Didn’t see that coming, did you, wonder boy?” Frank snarls. 

“Who gives you your orders?” Jongdae questions. 

Frank snorts. 

“You really don’t understand, do you? It’s not about order. It’s never been about order.”

Jongdae’s blood turns to ice. He looks over Frank’s shoulder and meets Sehun’s eyes. That is a litany they’ve both heard before, and it came from a man who claimed chaos was the only reasonable option for humanity, the one that made the most sense. A man who blew himself up less than an hour ago. 

“Thorne’s dead,” Jongdae says between gritted teeth. 

“Is he though?” 

Jongdae locks his jaws and tenses his muscles. He raises Frank’s body even higher and tosses him towards the cars. Frank crashed against a wing mirror, and the shock has him sliding on his side, wincing. When he looks up at Jongdae though, he flashes him a blinding smile. Furious, Jongdae takes a first step towards him before freezing when he notices that this side of the car barricade has been tagged. Now spreading over red, black and metallic coloured car bodies is a huge and enthusiastic – judging by the numerous exclamation marks - _boom_. 

Jongdae throws himself on Frank before the latter can even sits up, and he grabs him by the collar again before pressing him harder against the car door. The back of Frank’s head hits the door with a loud thud. 

“What was his plan?! What were you supposed to do in the Bottoms?!”

Frank chuckles. “We were never supposed to reach the Bottoms. Order won’t save the world so why do we keep trying?” 

Jongdae shoves him against the door a second time before turning back to Sehun. The latter is already watching him. Behind him, one of the closest policemen takes a first step towards Jongdae, his gun raised and still aiming at Jongdae. Sehun raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Don’t be dick like your boss,” he sighs before giving a violent push with the palm of his hand on the man’s chest. The latter literally flies away and crashes against the railing, knocked out by the violence of the shock.

“Do what you gotta do,” Sehun tells Jongdae with a short nod. “I’m dealing with the hundred possible scumbags here.” 

He eyes a woman near him who nervously lowers her gun when he meets her eyes. Jongdae draws back his attention on Frank. Sehun may want to act as though it’s just a game, the threat is real. The signal emitted by the radio Jongdae’s still holding is reverberating through the whole crowd. There could be dozens of them amongst the cops, dozens of people who wouldn’t hesitate to open fire. 

Jongdae looks into Frank’s eyes. The latter’s smile widens. 

“Do it,” he says. “Let me show you how great we could be without rules.”

Gritting his teeth, Jongdae presses his palm against Frank’s chest. 

It starts with the blurry image of a dark room, and a strong smell of rotten flesh and blood. Jongdae catches a vague shape lying at his feet, and he realizes with horror that it’s a small leg. Obviously a kid’s leg. His stomach tightens and he feels bile burning the back of his throat, but the rush of memories takes him somewhere else before he throws up. There’s a high-pitched laugh in the distance, and a cheery melody that sounds more and more like Snow White’s song, and Jongdae’s heart speed up in his chest. He closes his eyes, pushes harder on his power and breaks through the wall of memories Frank’s brain has been trying to shove into his face. Now he’s too deep to get caught, too small to be found. Synapses open, ending nerves buzz in unison with him and Jongdae digs deeper and deeper until he finds what he’s looking for. 

“We’re out!” Sehun’s voice screams, in a reality which feels both close and distant to Jongdae. 

A hand closes on Jongdae’s arm, and someone pulls him up violently, thus breaking the contact between Jongdae and Frank. For a short moment, Jongdae has the terrible impression that he’ll never find his body again and that he’ll live forever between two worlds. Reality clicks back together after what feels like an eternity and a terrifying amount of information swoops down on him, from colours and sounds to Sehun pulling him across a car’s bonnet. The whistles of bullets flying past him finally help him put the pieces together. 

He pulls away from Sehun who throws him a look of pure betrayal and surprise as he slides behind the car barrier. Flattening himself against the bonnet, Jongdae reaches out, grabs Frank by his bulletproof jacket and hauls him up before crouching down in the safety of the cars too. 

“What happened?” he asks Sehun, his heart still thumping wildly against his ribcage. 

“One of them opened fire and all hell broke loose,” Sehun shrugs. He glares at Frank. “Your fault.”

Frank’s grin suddenly reminds Jongdae what he caught in the detective’s mind. He sits up with a start and grabs Frank’s belt. He follows it with eager fingers until he finds the little box supposed to contain the handcuffs, but when he unclips it, it opens on a tiny remote, similar to the one Thorne had back in the police station. Jongdae’s heart tightens. 

“The bridges! They put bombs under them! They never were any bombs in the city, they’re all here!” he panics. _We all float down here_ , his mind scream. 

A car window shatters above him and Jongdae and Sehun shield their heads with their arms while Frank roars with laughter. 

“Is that the only detonator?” Sehun asks, gesturing at the remote in Jongdae’s hand. 

Jongdae nods. He looks at the device between his fingers then at Sehun’s face, his heart beating wild in his chest. He knows that, just like him, Sehun is painfully aware that a detonator isn’t the only way to set off a bomb. He glances at Frank, who is still chuckling, and activates his earpiece. 

“Heize,” he screams over the gunfire. “Get them all away from the bridge! They’ve been booby-trapped! Don’t let anyone go on that bridge!” 

She says something back, but another window blows up above their heads, and drowns her words. Panic starts swelling in Jongdae’s chest. He can hear the ruckus going on the other side of the roadblock. The smell of gunpowder is now thick enough to cover up the saltiness of the close sea, and soon enough blood will be added to the mix. Jongdae curses and makes to get back up on his feet, but Sehun grabs him by the arm. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks. “How will you know who’s bad and who’s not?”

Jongdae pulls away. 

“Do you expect me to stay here?! You might not give a fuck, but _I_ do!”

Hurt flashes through Sehun’s eyes, but it’s quickly replaced by his usual harsh, cold look. He pushes Jongdae, who loses his balance and falls back against the car door, and shoves the green radio in his hand. Jongdae hadn’t even realized he wasn’t holding it anymore. 

“Use your fucking waves and take them all down,” Sehun says between gritted teeth. 

This finally stops Frank’s laugh. He eyes the radio in Jongdae’s hand with envy and finally glares at Sehun. 

“I know who you are,” he says with a snarl. “You’re that kid who died in that warehouse five years ago. You know Thorne put that serum there on purpose, don’t you? The mayor just wanted you dead so that your boyfriend here would stop being such a pain in the ass. But Thorne thought you had potential for chaos.” He flashes Sehun a grin. “He was so pleased when you proved him right.”

Frank’s face is distorted by madness and hatred, to a point that Jongdae barely recognizes the man he bought sandwiches for for so long. Sehun looks at him with disbelief, surprise and shock painted all over his face. His eyes meet Frank’s, and the latter throws back his head as he bursts in laughter. This snaps Sehun out of his surprise, and his face hardens again, even more harshly than before. He grabs Frank’s head and hits it against the car, instantly knocking the latter out. 

Jongdae watches him, completely frozen, icy fingers seizing his heart. Sehun glares at him. 

“What are you waiting for?! _Do it!_ ” 

“Sehun – I,” Jongdae starts. Words drown in the back of his throat. 

“I don’t give a shit about what he said,” Sehun hisses. “Use your power Jongdae. Now!”

Jongdae looks down at the radio in his hand, and his brain instinctively focuses on the wave it’s emitting. He’s never done it before, use a communication device to reach people’s brains, but Sehun is right. What else could he do? Jump over the car and knock everyone out, then search them for a green radio? He looks at Sehun, feeling nauseous. Sehun ended up in that warehouse because of him. He thought that Alpha was a good thing for Port Ville. He thought he could save people, he thought he could –

Sehun leans in and closes his fingers around Jongdae’s forearm. His face is so close that Jongdae can see himself in Sehun’s irises. 

“I don’t give a shit about what he said,” Sehun repeats, in a much softer voice. “Do it.”

Jongdae looks at Sehun’s fingers, tightly wrapped around his arm, then back at the latter’s face. They stare at each other, and Sehun finally pulls his hand away. Jongdae nods, closes his eyes and lets himself be sucked in by the wave buzzing between his fingers. 

 

 

 

Kyungsoo’s heart leaps into his throat at Jongin’s report on Heize and Alpha’s latest exchange. _Bombs?_ Of fucking course, he mentally snorts. You’d think that criminals would be a little more original in Port Ville, with all they can get away with here, but no. Bombs. He should be afraid he realizes. He should be freaking out even, but he thinks that maybe they’re going too fast and he has left his heart somewhere behind them. Drunk on adrenaline, he pulls harder on the level and Jongin gasps next to him. Or, at least, Kyungsoo thinks he does, because the wind is howling in his ears and he can’t hear a thing. 

Jongin grips the boat’s dashboard tighter, his other hand still holding his Heize mask so it doesn’t fly away. Kyungsoo did learn something about the Bottoms today, thanks to his new friend. Apparently, tiny boats are surprisingly easy to hijack, and it definitely was for the best. In exchange, he taught Jongin something about himself: his father showed him how to drive a boat during one of their many fishing days. 

“Kyungsoo slow down, _please_!” Jongin screams. “We’re almost there!”

He makes to point at the coast in front of them, but a particularly violent bounce has him clasping Kyungsoo’s arm. Kyungsoo glances at him and Jongin glowers. 

“You’re crazy!”

Kyungsoo doesn’t disagree, because he does feel crazy. He starts to understand why his father never quit the PVPD although his love for his work ended up costing him his wife. He understands why he would still go out and risk his life for a city that can’t be saved, and after years of resenting him, Kyungsoo thinks he’s finally getting him. He can’t help but feel thrilled at the idea that he might help save people’s life tonight. He feels in control, and it helps with the throbbing pain left in his body by Thorne’s little games. 

“Hey, are they shooting at each other?” Jongin yells in his ears. 

Kyungsoo blinks and narrows his eyes at the shore getting closer and closer. There seems to be a huge gathering there, which means that his dad didn’t cross the bridge yet. But it doesn’t necessarily imply his safety, because Jongin is right, it does look like they’re fighting… Kyungsoo catches a few people falling on the ground here and there, and his heart freezes in his chest. 

“Fuck,” he groans, his voice drowned by the engine and the clapping sound. 

He looks down at the level and pushes the boat in full speed. Jongin startles, still gripping Kyungsoo’s arm, and makes to pull down the level. Kyungsoo snatches his wrist. The boat is going so fast now that its hull hits the water with enough violence to lift the vessel and make it plan. With the lack of concrete holds on the boat, Kyungsoo topples backwards, and Jongin is dragged in his fall. 

“Fuck, Kyungsoo!” Jongin moans in Kyungsoo’s ear when the back of his head hits the floor. 

Fear is definitely catching up on Kyungsoo now. The boat doesn’t even feel like it’s touching the water but like it’s flying, and they’re going so fast, Kyungsoo is actually starting to feel sick. He’s the one reaching out to grab onto Jongin’s arm. The latter glances at him, and bravery flashes through his eyes. He takes Kyungsoo’s hand and sits up to glance at the front of the boat. Kyungsoo sees his eyes open wide. 

Jongin throws himself on top of Kyungsoo, which lets out a confused yell, but before he can vocalize his surprise, the boat lands on something hard and solid that is definitely not water. Kyungsoo shuts his eyes, his stomach leaping into his throat and fear thumping against his temples. His fingers dig into Jongin’s hips as the roar caused by the hull gliding over the concrete fills his ears. They won’t make it. He won’t save anyone. Instead, he would have had both he and Jongin killed.

But after what feels like an eternity, the boat actually slows down. It starts swaying when the speed isn’t high enough to keep it straight, and it finally topples on the side, making Jongin and Kyungsoo roll then crash against the starboard gunwale. 

“Oh my god,” Kyungsoo pants. He tries to move from under Jongin’s body in vain. “Jongin, are you okay?”

Jongin whines against Kyungsoo’s shoulder, and the latter allow himself a long, deep sigh of relief. His whole body is shaking like a leaf, and he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to stand up. He might have cracked a few bones, or at least made a few of his wounds bleed again, but the feeling that lingers isn’t even pain. It’s fear. Heayy-on-his-tongue and iron-taste fear. 

“Mr. Do?!” someone says.

Kyungsoo looks up, and immediately recognizes the round face of Pyo Jihoon, one of the newest recruits of the police department now bending over him and Jongin, looking lost and worried. Kyungsoo’s heart leaps into his throat when he remembers why he tried to kill himself and Jongin in the first place. 

“Bombs!” he shrieks. He shoves Jongin away. “There are bombs on the bridge, do not cross it!” 

“We know! Heize warned us!” Jihoon says. He looks as high on adrenaline as Kyungsoo feels, and it doesn’t seem to have the safest effect on Jihoon either. “But wait, how do _you_ know?” He frowns at Jongin and at the mask the latter is still wearing. “And who are you?”

There’s a burst of bullets above Jihoon’s head and he crouches down with a start. His look of confusion shifts to one of determination, and he helps Kyungsoo gets back up on his feet with a strong hand. 

“Let’s get you the hell away from here,” he says. 

He frowns when Kyungsoo sways on his twisted ankle, but doesn’t anything. Instead, he puts Kyungsoo’s arm over his shoulder and looks over at Jongin. 

“Can you walk?” he asks. 

Kyungsoo looks at Jongin who gives a sharp nod. He has a cut on his temple that seems to bleed a lot. Kyungsoo’s stomach twists with guilt. 

“Okay,” Jihoon says. “On the count of three… One… two… three!”

They dash off together, Jongin definitely faster than Jihoon and Kyungsoo, whose ankle did not seem to have liked their little crash. He winces and grits his teeth as he tries to keep the pain at bay. In front of them, Jongin glances over his shoulder and stops when he realizes how far Jihoon and Kyungsoo are. He doesn’t even hesitate before rushing back to them. 

He grabs Kyungsoo’s second arm and wraps it around his shoulders. Kyungsoo clenches his fingers on his biceps, only remembering Jongin is also hurt when the latter tenses. He doesn’t say anything though and keeps holding Kyungsoo – who would like to let of Jongin’s wounded arm but who, for some reasons, absolutely can’t. Gunfire is raging on around them, he hears screams, yells, random names shouted, and it scares him so much. He tries to look over his shoulder, hoping to get a glimpse of his healthy and very alive father, but he only sees people killing each other, and that freaks him out. He’s pretty sure his throat has started emitting that whistling sound so specific to panic attacks for him, but with the chaos around them, neither Jihoon nor Jongin seem to hear it.

Kyungsoo closes his eyes and tries to control his breathing, to keep the attack at bay, but it obviously doesn’t work because everything is now muffled, as though Kyungsoo was hearing the scene from under a thick layer of water. It sounds like drowning to him, and it just freaks him out even more. 

“Wait,” Jongin’s voice says. It’s close, so close. Kyungsoo tightens his hold on his arm. “ _Aouch_!”

Kyungsoo feels Jihoon pulling away, and it’s the final straw for Kyungsoo. He opens his eyes with a start, ready to beg Jihoon but words die down in the back of his throat when he catches the look of surprise on the latter’s face. Turning his head towards Jongin, and Kyungsoo realizes the latter looks at least as dumbstruck. So Kyungsoo follows their gaze. 

The gunfire wasn’t muffled because Kyungsoo was falling deeper into his panic attack. It was muffled because it simply ceased. Kyungsoo stares, mouth agape, at the people lying on the floor with their guns still in their hands, but their eyes shut tight as though they were just sleeping. The men and women still up are looking as disoriented as Kyungsoo, Jihoon and Jongin, and a low whisper starts rising. 

“That’s gotta be Alpha,” Jongin says in a blank voice. 

Kyungsoo looks at him, and Jongin meets his eyes, in complete disbelief. 

“How?” Kyungsoo asks. 

Jongin shrugs helplessly. On Kyungsoo’s left, Jihoon gasps. 

“Soojung!” he exclaims, rushing forward to a woman, who just fell on her knees a few feet ahead, both her hands pressed against her stomach, blood trickling from between her fingers. 

Kyungsoo tenses, but this time, Jongin looks at him. 

“Let’s find your dad,” he says. “Hang onto me, I’ll help you.”

Kyungsoo nods, not trusting himself enough to speak. He tightens his hold on Jongin, although leaving a safe distance between his clenching fingers and Jongin’s wound this time. He tries not to look down as he feels still on the edge of a new panic attack – and there has seen more than enough blood and bodies in display for a first time anyway. 

It makes him feel slightly better to realize that Jongin probably feels the same, as he bypasses the bulk of the bodies.

 

 

Jongdae opens his eyes with a gasp, and once again, he has the scary feeling that he’s now sitting outside his body, like he has been badly synchronized. It was terrifying the first time, but now it’s actually painful, and he lets out a low moan as he curls up on himself. His forehead grazes the concrete, and that enough overwhelms him. He feels the heat the road emits, he smells rubber and gasoline, he feels the irregularities against his skin, and he sees the details crystal clear. It drives into his mind with another shot of pure pain that knocks the air out of him. His eyes fill with burning tears, and he feels something hot dripping from his nose. Glancing down, he catches the first drop of blood splatter on the concrete, and once again, his mind is overwhelmed. 

Jongdae closes his eyes. He hears the water lapping. He hears his blood rush through his veins. There’s another sound, one that he’s never heard before, one that makes him uneasy because it’s everywhere. When his mind draws a picture out of that sound, his heart crashes loudly against his ribcage. Cells. He’s hearing cells dividing and dying, and coming back to life. Jongdae lets out a shaky sob as he presses his palms against his ears. 

It was too much. It was too hard. But he did it. He followed that wave everywhere it took him, and he took everyone out, but now he feels barely alive. Or _too_ alive, and it scares him. He can literally hear the walls of his lungs expand and open when he breathes. The saliva he gulps down sounds like a waterfall. He lets out a groan, hoping that his voice would cover everything, and it just scares him even more when he picks up the vibrations of his vocal chords and the layers in his intonations. 

Jongdae holds his breath. He can feel the blood trickling down his chin, he can taste it on his lips. He tries to tone down the fear rising up in his chest by thinking about all those times he woke up freaking out after a bad dream. This time is a bit more violent, but it’s the same thing, he repeats himself. He needs to think about what he would do if he could slip into his brain. He needs to think about synapses, about electricity and nerve endings. Here, he would cut the connection. There, he would create one. Little by little, he would tear down this feeling, and he would replace it with a softer one, a calmer one.

He takes a deep breath. His heart still hurts, but his senses aren’t as sensitive anymore. Sniffing, Jongdae winces as copper fills his mouth. He wipes his nose with the back of his sleeve and straightens. The first thing he sees is a still unconscious Frank lying next to him. Jongdae lets go of the green radio with a jolt as though it burnt his fingers. He doesn’t hear any gunfire coming from the other side of the roadblock anymore, which is definitely a good sign. He did it. He really did it. 

He looks up at Sehun, pride and relief washing over him. It’s a fleeting victory though, because when his eyes fall where Sehun’s face should be and are only met by the right railing of Misaine bridge, the downfall is quick to come. 

“Sehun?” Jongdae tries. He looks right and left. His heart speeds up in his chest. “Sehun?”

He grabs the closest car’s door and uses it for support as he gets back on his feet. His head peeks out from behind the roadblock, and police officers immediately point at him. Jongdae looks at the bodies lying at their feet, but none of them is Sehun’s. His legs still a bit unsure, he slides over a bonnet and lands on the other side. He can’t hear Sehun’s heart. He’s not here. 

One of the women starts clapping as Jongdae walks unsteadily to them, and the rest of the policemen join her in pleased cheers. Jongdae flashes them a slight smile, most of his attention still focused on finding Sehun. 

“Thank you Alpha,” the woman says when he reaches her. “Thank you so much.”

She’s half sobbing, half smiling, and Jongdae’s heart clenches in his chest. He draws all his attention on her, feeling a bit guilty. She’s bleeding from her lip and eyebrow arch, and now that Jongdae is actually paying attention, he can taste blood on the back of his tongue. He looks around him and sees multiple wounds. 

“You should call for an ambulance,” he tells the police officers. “And you need to get out of the bridge. Call a bomb-disposal team…” his voice trails off. 

His eyes just fell on Port Ville’s horizon line. Broken lines and buildings’s outlines tower over Misaine bridge, lightened up by neon signs and huge advertisement boards. Taller than any other building, the Business Tower watches over the city, its hundreds of glass windows catching the faint glow of the moon and the harshest ones of Port Ville’s nocturnal life. Jongdae watches, petrified, as flashes from Thorne’s video conference with the mayor go through his mind. He distinctively remembers the huge paint hanging behind Yang Hyunsuk’s face, because it’s the one that always takes half of the frame when the mayor gives an important speech on television. It’s the one in his office. In the highest tower. 

Jongdae’s breath catches in the back of his throat. He blinks down at the woman, who was apparently still talking to him and he slowly shakes his head. 

“I have to go,” he says. He looks around him, already stepping away. “Please take care of you, all of you…” 

He whirls around before he’s even done with his sentence and dashes off. He should have felt it coming, he should have known it. Didn’t he say he was getting pretty used to Sehun bailing out on him? Jongdae internally snorts. He hoped again, he let himself believe that everything would finally go back to normal, but how could it? Sehun has never stopped wanting his revenge, and Jongdae just buried his head in the sand. How stupid. 

It feels like forever before he reaches the end of the bridge, and he welcomes the sight of the first row of houses with a sigh of relief. Adrenaline, but mostly urgency, are now slowly taking over his body, washing away the heavy pain throbbing in him, so Jongdae manages to speed up. He first jumps on the low wall running along the first house’s front lawn, then on the eaves and finally on the roof. Jumping from one roof to the other instead of using the streets will save a precious amount of time. He has no idea when Sehun left though, and for all he knows, he could already be in the tower. The mayor could already be dead. This thought has Jongdae forcing even more on his muscles. He jumps from another house’s roof and catches the gutter of a small building. He has barely hauled himself on the roof that he’s already running and gaining momentum. 

He has to reach the mayor before Sehun. He has to stop Sehun. He can come back from what he did before, he can come back from the jewel thieves and Thorne’s daughter, but if he reaches the end of his quest for revenge, Jongdae can’t help but feel like the bloodlust will never stop. It would change Sehun forever, and there’s no coming back from that. 

Jongdae lands harshly on a new roof, the nervousness creeping up on him now so strong that he stumbles and crashes against the concrete. He lets out a shaky moan and gets on all fours before jumping back on his feet. He winces at the peak of pain in his knees and limp towards the edge of the roof. Down below, the six lane street running around Port Ville’s business block throbs with activities. Cars drive by in a flash of headlights, and people gather at the crossings, patiently waiting for the light to turn green. On the other side of it, the Admiral Hostel stands in all its glory, towering over Jongdae. Behind the latter, the Business Tower rises even higher. On the top floor, offering a breath-taking panorama over the city, is the mayor’s office. 

Jongdae pulls up his hood, takes a deep breath and steps over the edge of the roof. The ground quickly moves closer and closer, and Jongdae braces himself. He curls up, lands with a roll and immediately dashes off across the street. He hears people gasping in his back, a woman lets out a yelp, and a couple of cars aggressively honk. He can hear the engines, the brakes and tires so clearly, so he uses it instead of focusing on what he sees, and it makes his zigzagging much more precise. 

He reaches the separating barrier and jumps over it. People have gathered on the other side of the street, fingers are pointing at him, and pictures are being taken. They part with a gasp when Jongdae rushes to them, and he thanks them internally as he keeps going towards the Admiral Hostel’s revolving doors. The doorman’s eyes open wide when Jongdae slides to a halt before him and his confusion gives Jongdae a chance to walk into the revolving doors. Through the spotless glasses he catches a security guard coming closer, his reflexes obviously sharper than the doorman, and Jongdae sighs. His muscles tense, adrenaline floods his body over again, and Jongdae’s breath settles down. When the revolving door open on the large hall of the hostel and on the security guard, he is ready. 

He reaches out and his fingers brush the man’s arm. The latter freezes, and Jongdae immediately sets off towards the row of fancy elevators. 

“Hey, is that Alpha?!” 

Customers and staff barely have time to turn around that Jongdae is already slipping into an elevator whose doors just opened. The lift man inside gasps at him, and Jongdae flashes a sorry look at the clients waiting outside the elevator. 

“Sorry!” he says, before pressing the button that has the doors shutting, then the one for the last floor. 

Next to him, the lift man blinks. 

“It’s the – the suite floor. Do you have a suite, mister…?” his voice trails on as he looks at Jongdae, and he obviously looks completely unable to wrap his head around what is going on. 

Jongdae gives him a slight smile. He shakes his head. 

“I’m not staying for the night,” he says politely. “I just need to reach the roof.”

“The roof,” the lift man says in a blank voice. “You might want to take my pass, the door is locked.”

He makes to take out his magnetic card from the string he’s wearing around his neck, but Jongdae stops him, slightly amused. 

“I’ll be fine,” he says. 

The lift man winces before nodding. 

“Of course,” he mumbles. “You’re Alpha.” 

Jongdae internally snorts. Yes, he is, and he’s done nothing but fucking up since he created that persona. He eyes the numbers glowing one after the other above the elevator doors. His only chance to stop Sehun in time is if Sehun decided to play a little with Yang Hyunsuk instead of killing him right away, and Jongdae isn’t sure that would be better. Pure fear is now rushing through his body, and he squirms with uneasiness before shifting closer to the doors. He needs to rush out of the elevator as soon as they open. His heart is beating so loudly he barely hears the mechanism that’s taking them to the last floor. 

“It’ll be on the right, at the end of the corridor,” the lift man says behind him, and Jongdae slightly nods. 

The elevator slows down and another burning shot of adrenaline takes over Jongdae. He slips his fingers in the cracks between the doors and push them open before jumping out of the elevator. He immediately turns right, straight to the white door stamped with a large red _Staff only_ and reaches it in a few seconds. Carried by his speed, he hits the wall violently, thus cracking a few of his ribs, but Jongdae barely even winces. He dismisses the magnetic box next to the door and smashes the latter down. The racket it makes as it falls on the staircase it was hiding probably reverberates through the whole building, but Jongdae will be long gone by the time the security guards get there. 

He knocks down the last door leading to the roof at the top of the staircase, and steps out. In front of him, impressing and intimidating, stands the Business Tower. Jongdae looks up at the hundreds of windows, each of them reflecting a different kaleidoscope version of Port Ville, and his breath catches in the back of his throat. 

“Okay,” he says in a whisper. “Okay, let’s do this.”

He takes a deep breath and gauges the distance between the hostel and the tower. His heart thumping adrenaline and nervousness through his body, he carefully takes a few steps back for more momentum. He glances at the huge windows reflecting the Admiral Hostel’s roof on the other side, and grits his teeth. His muscles tense, harden, and Jongdae flings himself forward. He’s midway to the edge of the roof when the panoramic windows at the top of the tower shatters as a body flies through them. Jongdae glances up, immediately recognizes the fancy suit and the hoarse voice screaming into the night, and he lets himself fall on the side to slow down and eventually stop. He rolls over a few feet but hastily gets back on his feet before rushing back towards the roof access. He slides to a halt, turns around and dashes off towards the Business Tower a second time. This time though, his eyes are glued to the mayor still falling down. 

Jongdae reaches the low wall, hops on it, uses it to propel himself, and he jumps over the emptiness. His body hits the mayor’s, and he grabs he latter just before they crash through a window. Jongdae feels tiny pieces of glass tear his flesh, quickly followed by several harsh surfaces colliding with him and knocking the air out of him. He lets go of the mayor’s arm at some point, still rolling through the room, and is finally stopped by a wall against which the back of his head crack. 

Jongdae stays on the floor, gaping at the stainless ceiling above his head. It worked. He didn’t think it would – or he wouldn’t have thought if he had had the time to think about it. He glances at his left arm, and winces upon seeing a large sliver of glass peeking out from his biceps. Groaning, he wraps his fingers around it and pulls it out before sitting up. He can hear the mayor’s heartbeat so the latter also survived Jongdae’s desperate action, hopefully without any pieces of glass piercing his body. 

Jongdae hastily gets back on his feet, and hurries towards the heartbeat. The mayor is indeed lying on the floor, half of his face bleeding out, and an expression of pure shock spread over his features. They harden when Jongdae appears in his field of vision though, and he emits a sort of outraged hiccup sound. 

“ _You_ ” he hisses. He sits up and moans before holding his right arm against him. “You have to take me out of here, your friend is completely crazy!”

Jongdae resists the urge to punch the politician with much difficulty because Yang does have a point. Sehun is still in the tower, and he probably saw Jongdae’s stupid rescue, which means that he’s already on his way down here. 

Jongdae glances around him, internally wincing at the obvious sign of their chaotic landing. A few computers have been tossed on the floor, and chairs have toppled over. Luckily for him, his body is already healing from the aftermath, and he hardly feels sorry for the mayor who probably has some huge bruises blooming on his skin. Jongdae’s eyes stop on a close desk. He grabs the mayor by his collar and drags him across the floor. 

“What are you doing?!” the Yang Hyunsuk hisses. “I am the mayor of this city and you –”

He stops to let out a pained moan as Jongdae drags him over the shattered window on the floor. He pushes him under the desk with more violence than what he aimed for, and the mayor lets out another yelp as his head hits a drawer. 

“Zip it,” Jongdae snaps. “If you want to stay alive, you’re going to keep your fucking mouth shut, is it clear? Don’t you think I know what you’ve done?”

Yang Hyunsuk glowers at him, but the effect is ruined by his miserable attempt at making himself smaller. Jongdae snorts and turns around. He draws out two blades from his belt and plants himself between the desk and the hallway, his heart speeding up in his chest. He doesn’t even try to calm down his breathing because Sehun would still be able to hear him anyway, just like Jongdae hears him getting closer and closer. He braces himself as the slow, regular heartbeat amplifies in his ears, but he can’t help a shiver from running down his spine when the stairway door opens and Sehun steps inside the room. 

He looks up at Jongdae, his hood pulled down but his mask still hiding his lower face. He looks dishevelled but lethal and determined. His eyes narrow at the desk behind Jongdae. 

“Do you really think I can’t hear him?” he says with a snarl. “I can even _smell_ him. He reeks of fear and hypocrisy.” 

The mayor whimpers under the desk, and Sehun’s cold eyes turn into pleased slits. 

“I’m not gonna let you do that,” Jongdae says. “You can’t decide who has to die. He’ll go to jail and –”

“And what? He’ll stay there? Nobody will ever be hurt because of him anymore? Why can’t you understand? It’s just one life against the dozens innocent ones he would harm.”

Jongdae shakes his head. Sehun looks scary, so angry, and it makes him feel so uneasy. He’s already drifting away. It’s like losing him all over again when he had barely started to get him back.

“We’re not killers,” he says, his voice laced with begging intonations. 

Sehun grins. Something dark flashes through his eyes. 

“ _You’re_ not. But I am.”

He throws one of his blade at Jongdae who dodges it, but he can’t avoid Sehun throwing himself at him, and they both hit the floor with a heavy thud. Sehun administrates the first punch. His knuckles shatter Jongdae’s cheekbone and blood spurts out of Jongdae’s nose. He shields his face from the second blow with one arm and closes his other hand around the hair on the back of Sehun’s head. Sehun groans when Jongdae pulls hard on it, and his inattention gives Jongdae the opportunity to hit him on the chest. Sehun falls on his back, thus allowing Jongdae to get back on his feet, but he immediately rolls on his side and makes to drive a blade through Jongdae’s foot. The latter avoids it in extremis and pushes Sehun further away by kicking him in the stomach. Sehun crashes against the wall. 

Jongdae whirls around towards the desk, but he immediately notices the absence of a heartbeat under it. Gasping, he looks up just in time to see the mayor rush into a private office and closing the door behind him. As if it could save him. 

Sehun has seen the miserable escape too, so he jumps back on his feet and rushes towards the office. Jongdae immediately dashes off, regularly glancing on his left to check Sehun’s advance. Their eyes meet several times, and Sehun groans, furious. He grabs a stapler on the run and throws it at Jongdae who dodges it again. It shatters another window behind him.

The door of the office being on Sehun’s side, he just has to smash it down to enter the mayor’s new hiding spot, and it’s exactly what he does while Jongdae finds himself overwhelmed by panic. He shields his face and speeds up towards the wall separating him from the office. He runs through it with a loud crash, and stops on the other side, both impressed and surprised. He meets Sehun’s eyes, who was still near the door, and catches sight of Yang Hyunsuk pressed in a corner in the back of the room. 

Sehun eyes the hole in the wall before looking back at Jongdae. 

“Let justice have him,” he begs. “Please.”

Sehun snorts. 

“You’ve been trying to save this city for so long, but it just bleeds on you and you don’t even realize that you’re drowning,” he says. 

They stare at each other for a while, tension closing in on them. Jongdae listens to Sehun’s heart, the mayor’s heavy breathing and whimpers getting more and more distant. He listens to the slow and detached rhythm, his eyes taking in Sehun’s face. Liquid rage is lurking under his irises, tension and bloodlust weighing down on his features. He breathes deeply. His heart slightly speeds up and Jongdae’s instincts immediately react. 

He dashes off towards Sehun, meaning to stop him as the latter also sets off towards the mayor, but Sehun was obviously prepared. He dodges Jongdae’s body by crouching and sliding on the floor. He grabs Jongdae’s hip while doing so and uses it to quickly get back on his hips. It happens in the blink of an eye, and Jongdae reacts a bit too late. Sehun is already behind him, his hands already on his back, and the push comes, strong and violent. Jongdae flies away and crashes through the floor-to-ceiling window. 

The wind howls in his ears, and his heart leaps out of his throat. For a fleeting second, Jongdae thinks he’s going to fall and crash fifteen floors below, but then his hands close on the edge of the window, and his fingers tighten around it, not minding the glass piercing his gloves. The rest of his body hits the window below the office, and it knocks the air out of him. Jongdae feels like his organs have all left his body. 

He hears the mayor whimpers back in the office. Forcing himself out of the blurry shock state of mind he can feel himself getting into, Jongdae bites his lower lips and tenses his arm muscles. He hauls himself back into the office, hastily getting away from the shattered window as soon as his knees are back on the solid floor. His body still shaking, he looks up.

Yang Hyunsuk is still in the back of the room, but now he’s on his knees as Sehun stands behind him, two of his blades pressing against the mayor’s Adam’s apple in a lethal scissor. Jongdae slowly gets back on his feet, Sehun’s eyes glued to him. 

“Please,” the mayor pleads, his voice breaking. “Please don’t –”

Sehun shifts his blades on his throat, and Yang Hyunsuk whimpers. Jongdae holds out his hand, but he stands still when Sehun’s eyes narrow at him. 

“Tell me, Jongdae,” he says in a cold, burning voice. “Would you kill to save a life?”

Jongdae’s eyes go from one of Sehun’s eyes to the other. He takes a deep breath and raises his hand a little higher. 

“Sehun, please don’t,” he says. “Please… Let me help you…”

“I don’t need help!” Sehun snaps. “I am not your Sehun, I am not the boy who died five years ago!”

His eyes are spitting fire and tears. Jongdae’s heart cracks and crashes in his ribcage. He can feel his own throat constrict as he watches the man who only kept features from the boy he once was. Sehun grew up so much in the past five years, and he got so taut, so broad. He’s done things the Sehun from before would have never done, both good and bad, but it doesn’t matter in the end. He’s so much more than who he was five years ago. He’s so much more than the memories Jongdae holds so dearly. He’s alive. 

Jongdae takes in a shallow breath. 

“I know,” he says, his voice breaking. “And that’s okay. That’s okay. I just – I just want you, Sehun.”

Sehun blinks away the tears flooding his eyes. He glances at the mayor, still at his mercy, and seems to hesitate for a bit. Then he looks up at Jongdae and slightly frowns. Tilting his head on the side, he closes his eyes, lets out a low whisper that Jongdae doesn’t catch, and his body finally stills, all tension and uneasiness dying away. 

Jongdae takes another step, and Sehun reopens his eyes. He looks straight into Jongdae’s face. His heart slowly goes back to its regular rhythm. 

Then he drives his two blades through Yang Hyunsuk’s flesh, slicing his throat open with a graceful flick of his wrists before stepping back and putting back his blades in his thigh holsters, the mayor’s body slouching down in front of him with a gurgling sound. 

“No!” Jongdae cries out, knowing perfectly well that it is too late. 

Sehun steps back as Jongdae’s heart explodes in his chest, then he turns on his heels. Jongdae rushes to the mayor’s side, begging for a miracle while he chokes on the heavy smell of blood. He lands on his knees in the puddle of thick liquid and bile burns the back of his throat when he meets the mayor’s terrified eyes. He’s chocking on his own blood, on the lack of air and on fear, but pain is probably already long gone judging by the amount of blood spreading around Jongdae’s knees. He presses his hand on Yang Hyunsuk’s throat, his palm catching the throbbing of the mayor’s sliced carotid getting slower and slower, and he lets out a shaky breath. He immediately regrets it when a ferrous taste fills his mouth. 

“It’s okay,” he says in a shaky voice. “It’s okay.” 

He looks over his shoulder, broken sobs rushing into his throat, but Sehun is long gone. He doesn’t even hear his heart anymore. The sound of Port Ville’s night life seems so distant, so blurry. Everything is so silent. 

Jongdae looks down at the mayor. 

It’s so silent.

 

 

 

Port Ville is beautiful when it’s spread over fiery and burning colours. Jongdae’s eyes slide over the mix of pastel rose and angry orange and stop on the soft horizon line of the sea. It’s twinkling, almost dancing, under the last minutes of sunlight. The city is fairy-tale like, and it thrums with the excitement of hundreds of people getting ready for a night out. On his left, the Bottoms shine the brightest as the sun slowly dives down behind them, cloudy flames shooting up in the sky like a halo over the island. The cars driving through the three bridges reflect every ray of sunshine in a kaleidoscope of colours, thus looking like sparkling gems. Tomorrow, Port Ville Sailor’s Gazette will marvel at the beauty of this piece of land which holds so much of the city’s history in a lengthy article. It will commemorate everyone one who died there five nights ago, every police officer who gave their life for the security of the city, but it will mostly admire the ceremony that took place earlier today. It’s the first time, in Port Ville’s history, that the Bottoms are the stage of such a prestigious ceremony, to which most of the city attended. They all watched in a silence almost holy as the deputy mayor, Mrs. Amy Lee, gave the key of the city to Port Ville’s superheroes. 

Jongdae glances at Dahye, who is sitting on the edge of the roof next to him, then at the heavy golden key she’s wearing around her neck. It’s a new age, so many people have said, an age for heroism and courage. He’s heard some of them talking about changing the name of the Bottoms to something more hopeful, but Jongdae doesn’t think it will last. The island is still drug dealers’ territory, and there are too many terrible secrets lurking in its dark, dirty corners. Soon enough, people will forget, and they will stop smiling at each other on the streets. Port Ville will go back to what it’s always been: a city that bleeds and drowns its inhabitants.

“Chanyeol, Jongin, Kyungsoo and I are going out for a drink tonight,” Dahye says out of the blue. “Wanna join?”

She gives him a little smile, but Jongdae knows from the look in her eyes that she doesn’t have much hope. 

“Nah,” he answers. “I’ll just go home and order myself a nice pizza.” He glances at his own key around his neck, gold clashing with the black of his Alpha costume. “And throw that in a box,” he adds. 

Dahye chuckles. 

“You know, Chanyeol thinks it’s unfair that they didn’t get one.”

“Yeah, well tell him that all he did was getting lost.”

“I will,” she snorts, amused. 

They slip back into a comfortable silence, their friendship strong enough for them to not feel uneasy at the lack of words between them. Jongdae glances at Dahye’s bird-like profile because of her Heize mask, then back at the scenery spreading at their feet. She’s asked him a few times already to join her daily meetings with Chanyeol, Jongin and Kyungsoo, but Jongdae doesn’t feel like mingling with the rest of the world right now. Just like Port Ville, he reckons it will take him a few weeks to get back to his old routine. He still hasn’t decided what he wants to do with himself next – what he wants to do with _Alpha_. 

He thinks about Jihoon asking him if he could come by the hospital to visit a recovering Soojung. He thinks about Insung tearing up at the ceremony as he was holding his son tightly against him – and about Kyungsoo who looked up at him with the same look Sehun and Dahye had when they knocked on his door for the first time. A look of thankfulness and eagerness, a look that says _I want to change things too_. 

“Did I tell you that Insung promoted Jihoon today? He’s my new partner,” Dahye says. 

Jongdae looks at her with surprise. He supposes it makes sense, considering how many officers are now looking at a good number of years in jail, but Jihoon was a great choice anyway. He’ll be a great detective. 

“I hope you’re ready for endless chats about how much he loves Alpha,” he teases her. 

Dahye snorts. 

“He does love you a lot.”

Jongdae chuckles. He looks at the horizon again, and his heart misses a beat when his eyes fall on the limit between the sun’s last rays and the night now draping over the city. It’s a dark shade of blue, one that glows like the sunset and is deep like the thick blackness of the night, and it looks haunting – haunted. 

“Alright,” he says, breathing in deeply. “You’ll get late for your date, you still need to change.”

“It’s not a date,” Dahye protests. 

“You’re right, because Jongin and Kyungsoo are cockblocking.”

She sighs and playfully shoves him with a chuckle. Jongdae winks at her, which makes her laugh softly. Something flashes through her eyes, and she suddenly huddles closer, wrapping both her arms around Jongdae’s and hooking her chin on his shoulder. They exchange a glance, and Jongdae’s heart floods with affection. 

“I’ll order your pizza for you,” Dahye says softly. “Just to make sure you’ll really have something to eat.”

Jongdae smiles. He kisses the tip of her nose. 

“Extra cheese,” he asks. 

She rolls her eyes. 

“I know.”

They look at each other for a little more and Jongdae finally closes his eyes. He leans in and presses his forehead against hers. 

_He’ll come back_ she told him, five days ago. _He came back when it didn’t seem possible, didn’t he?_. Yes, he did, Jongdae whispered. He doesn’t want to wait five years this time though. He doesn’t care about Sehun being completely messed up, he doesn’t care about what he did, he just wants to make sure he’s okay. And he has so many questions, so many things to say… It doesn’t seem fair. It isn’t fair to him. 

He’s been sleeping like a baby for the past five days though, and it’s such a nice change from the last five years. 

“Okay,” Dahye finally sighs. “Call me if you need anything okay? I’ll come by for breakfast tomorrow.”

Jongdae nods as he straightens. He smiles at her when she waves, then watches her walk away to the fire escape stairs. They exchange one last glance, and she disappears on the stairs. Jongdae listens to the sound of her soles against the metal until she reaches the alley. She slips away from Port Ville’s eyes in the darkness, unnoticed and unseen, straight to her apartment where she’ll become Jang Dahye again.

Jongdae glances down at the key around his neck for the second time. He’d better get going too. He feels like being Kim Jongdae again. 

He gets back on his feet, and turns to the edge of the roof. He sets off, propels himself forwards and lands on the roof across the street. Before jumping from that one too, he pulls out the necklace and wraps it around his belt, not liking the sound it makes against his costume when he moves. Then he looks up at his new goal, and starts running again. 

He lets his legs lead him back to his building, as his eyes wander over the night sky spreading over Port Ville, lost in his thoughts. When he finally lands in his roof, he doesn’t realize he’s not alone there until, at least, the intruder clears their throat playfully. 

Jongdae whirls around, his breath catching in the back of his throat. He is met with one of Lexie’s most blinding smiles. She looks oddly like she belongs, with her large hoodie and her long hair naturally curling down to the small of her back. Jongdae watches, mouth agape, as she winks at him, her bare face scrunching up with mischief, freckles in full display. 

“What are you doing here?” he squeals before mentally cursing himself for his lack of self-control. 

She chuckles. 

“Come on,” she says before throwing him another secretive smile. “Come on, _Jongdae_. I know, okay?”

Jongdae’s lips part and he finds himself at loss of what to say, which obviously pleases Lexie a lot. She walks up to him, pushing back a long golden strand of hair behind his left ear. 

“Don’t worry,” she says with a dismissive hand gesture. “I’ve known it for years now, and I never told anything, did I?”

Jongdae gulps. She’s doing it again, asserting her dominion over him. He glares at her. 

“I should arrest you,” he says. “You killed Pavoni.”

“Wasn’t the first, won’t be the last,” she singsongs. 

She sits on the lower wall, and looks up at him expectantly, her hand rubbing the spot next to her. Jongdae pretends he doesn’t notice which makes her smile. 

“Beaulieu was out,” she finally says. “And you were obviously determined on taking Thorne out of the picture. I figured it was my time to shine.”

Jongdae snorts and she sends him a flirty smile in return that turns into a genuine chuckle when he shakes his head, sighing. She pats the wall next to her, and this time Jongdae compels. He sits, but keeps a safe distance between them, just in case. He expects her to smile at him, or even tease him about it, but when he looks up, she watches him with serious eyes. 

“I’m cleaning Port Ville from Thorne’s fanatics,” she says. “I don’t want nothing to do with what he did.”

“Do I want to know how you’re taking care of them?” he asks. 

She smirks. “You’ve noticed Baekhyun’s absence, haven’t you?”

Jongdae slightly shakes his head, and once again, her smile slips off her face. He realizes that he doesn’t even know how old she is, but he thinks she might be younger than what he would have first thought. In her hoodie and her boyfriend jeans, her slim ankles peeking out from her sneakers, she could totally pass as a college student. He hopes she’s not that young though. 

“You want to be Port Ville’s light, you want to do everything by the book and be right and fair, but you have to know that when there’s light, there’s bound to be darkness,” she tells him very seriously. “Let’s make a deal, okay? Be the light. Be inspiring and good, and let me be the darkness. We’re probably going to hunt each other, but together we can create a good balance for this city. You and I both know it can’t be saved. But it doesn’t mean we have to go down in flames either.”

Jongdae looks into her face. She really is one of the most beautiful women he’s ever seen, but he thinks that what makes her stand out so much is that light she has in her eyes. She could say the craziest things, the glimmer in her azure eyes would make anyone consider them seriously. It might be the case right now, Jongdae realizes. She might be playing him again, but he can’t help but think that she has a point. Port Ville is a tired city. Jongdae is tired. If someone can lead the mob life of the city with an iron fist, it’s Lexie Wright. The three main leaders being dead, there is bound to be some wannabe gangsters suddenly deciding they can take over the city and spill blood. The last gang war in Port Ville was, after all, a war about succession. 

She smiles, as though reading his mind, and pats him on the arm, without even looking the slightest afraid at his contact. 

“I knew you were smart,” she says. “I’ll guess I’ll see you one of these days, then.”

She stands up and puts her hands into her hoodie pockets before heading to the roof access. 

“I didn’t agree though,” he calls out. 

She looks back at him with a chuckle. 

“Oh by the way. I have a piece of advice for you. If you want to stay in the game, surround yourself with people you trust. It worked out pretty nicely for me.” She pauses. “Maybe you should consider those little friends you had the other day. I liked them. I thought they were plucky.”

Jongdae snorts. 

“You know what? Maybe I will.”

This obviously delights her. She blows him a kiss before turning on her heels again, and she leaves the roof probably like she arrived: as though she owned the place. Jongdae watches the door closes behind her. _We’re probably going to hunt each other_ , she said. He snorts. Well, he’ll probably have to start with Byun Baekhyun then. 

He gets back up on his feet and the sound of the key against his costume catches his attention. _If_ he does decide to keep on being Alpha, anyway. 

He closes his finger around the key to stop it from dangling and walks to the backpack with clothes he always leaves on the roof. He’d better get home before Dahye’s pizza is delivered, or she’ll never stop screaming at him.

 

 

Jongdae fumbles in his jean pockets for his keys, his backpack dangling from his shoulder. The whole building sounds so alive in his ears. Since his little trick on Misaine bridge, his senses have been much more sensitive, and he’s been able to pick up many more things than before. It does come with consequences though, as his focus is now easier to lose. His mind wanders, from one voice to another, from one beating heart to another. It flickers, completely unable to remain on a single thing unless Jongdae actively works for it. He’s still getting used to it, but he’s learning to let go of the flow of information instead of his first instinct pushing him to analyse everything. His headaches are finally getting better. 

He turns his key in the hole and steps inside his apartment. Closing the door behind him doesn’t give him more privacy, but Jongdae likes it like that for now. He likes feeling so much life around him. He reckons it’ll probably change later, but he’s decided to do the one step at a time thing. He’ll worry about it when it’ll happen. 

Jongdae throws his backpack on the side as far away as possible and steps inside his living room. He freezes on the spot as his eyes fall on his open window. He can feel every part of his conscience previously whirling around in the building rushing back to him, and less than a heartbeat later, the only thing he can hear is the slow, regular beating of Sehun’s heart, its owner sitting on Jongdae’s window sill, his longs legs dangling in the emptiness. 

Sehun turns to look at Jongdae. He’s wearing the exact same outfit, the exact same leather jacket and the exact same pair of pants, but he looks so different in Jongdae’s eyes. He takes a first step towards Sehun, his eyes taking him in, from the tip of his unhooded head to his fingers clenching on the window sill. Sehun breathes in deeply, but shallowly and shakily. He lifts a hand and pulls down on his mask, fully revealing to Jongdae his broken expression. Their eyes meet, and Sehun’s fill with tears. He turns back to Port Ville’s scenery. 

Jongdae’s breath catches in the back of his throat, and he feels like the weight he’s been carrying around for the past five years has finally lifted. Painfully aware that Sehun is probably focusing on him to make sure he won’t try anything, Jongdae takes cautious steps towards the window despite his instincts and his whole body urging him to go faster. He finally stops just behind Sehun, so close that when they both breathe in, their jackets almost touch. Jongdae patiently waits, his skin itching with need and want, but Sehun doesn’t move or talk. He watches the horizon now covered in thick darkness, his legs dangling and his heels regularly hitting the side of the building. Jongdae feels himself crumbling down. 

He takes the last step and wraps his arms around Sehun. His fingers lock on the latter’s stomach and he presses his forehead against Sehun’s nape, his heart missing a beat. He huddles closer, his hold growing more desperate and he bites on his lower lip when Sehun gives a shaky spasm in response. It is quickly followed by a broken sob, and Jongdae’s heart shatters in his chest. 

“It’s okay,” he whispers while Sehun lowers his head and tries to hold back his sobs. “It’s gonna be okay…”

Sehun’s hands shoot in the air. His fingers wrap around Jongdae’s arms like claws, desperate and needy. They painfully dig into his flesh, tighten Jongdae’s hold around him and curl around his wrists, pressing hard against Jongdae’s skin. The latter tries to pull out to carry Sehun into the apartment, but Sehun shakes his head. He wipes his cheeks with fragile looking fingers and glances at Jongdae. Jongdae watches the neon lights reflect on the black of Sehun’s irises and on the tears still filling them. Sehun doesn’t look away. His gaze gets heavier and heavier until Jongdae feels like he’s sucked in. That’s when he understands. 

Sehun takes Jongdae’s hand and puts it on top of his. Jongdae links their fingers and closes his eyes. Sehun’s face lingers on the back of his eyelids for a short second before being replaced with floating dark spots of colours: dark greys, dark reds, dark brown, but very little black. Jongdae withdraws in the back of his mind, where his power sleeps, and he lashes it out. Sehun’s hand welcomes it with thousands of ending nerves, and Jongdae follows them, wraps himself around the electricity they emit, and lets himself be carried away. 

The first thing he sees is himself. His own body, hands stretched out and muscles tense. He looks dangerous, he looks about to throw himself at someone. The first thing Jongdae feels is the comforting coldness of the blades he’s holding in those hands that are not his. He glances down, and the mayor is on his knees, at his mercy. What does he think now that he’s reached the end of his life, Jongdae wonders with this inner voice that isn’t his. But then this very same voice drowns as dozens of other voices explode in his mind. He hears laughter, he hears snickering and poisonous cackling. Then he hears bones cracking, he hears flames raging and he feels the heat melting his skin, eating his organs, devouring him whole. 

_There’s no fire here_ the calmer voice tries to say under the mad laughter. _No fire._

The body Jongdae is in twitches, and the office goes back to normal. His real body is still in front of him, and he doesn’t look that dangerous now. He looks … He looks beautiful. Anger floods Jongdae. Things were never supposed to happen this way. 

His hands tighten on the blades and he slices the mayor’s throat. He doesn’t even hear the body collapsing nor does he hear the blood spurting out of the wound, because all he hears are bombs exploding, bones breaking and limbs tearing apart, and all he feels is the smell of his own death as blazing flames close in on him. He walks away. 

He's in the street now. _Sehun_ is in the street, and Jongdae is lying at his feet, tangled in his own cape. Sehun has to blink a few times to make him out, because his vision gets blurry. He watches Jongdae’s eyes under the Alpha mask, the curl of his lips and the tip of his nose. He looks away. There are two trucks on fire at the end of the street. Jongdae’s shin-bone has torn Jongdae’s costume. Is it really Jongdae though? Sehun draws back his attention on the man’s face. He watches his eyes under the Alpha mask, the curl of his lips, the tip of his nose. Deconstructed memories flood his mind, and they make absolutely no sense, but Sehun knows perfectly well that they once did. He’s learned to read the code his brain is now using to avoid the voices. It _is_ Jongdae, he realizes. He should be happy. He’s not. The voices are laughing again. Sehun steps away from Jongdae, just to make sure the latter wouldn’t go and grab him. There are already enough voices in his mind. 

Sehun is running in the streets. There are so many people around him. Every time his eyes fall on a new face, his mind registers it as broken, bloody and beaten to a pulp. His knuckles itch with the need to hit, the need to destroy and kill. But nothing is as strong than the need to shake Jongdae off. He hears him running after him, he hears him breathing, and for a nice fleeting second, the world looks clean again. There’s no blood, no bruises, no cuts. Sehun’s motivation hardens. It doesn’t matter. He can’t allow Jongdae to catch him. That’s not the plan. He grabs one of his blades and throws it over his shoulder. He hears Jongdae slide in a halt, he hears him bumping into a couple to save them, and Sehun jumps on a car, knowing he’s out of the woods. He turns around and his eyes fall on the gathering. It looks bloody to him, lethal and macabre, but he knows it’s just his mind playing tricks on him because Jongdae is there, and Jongdae likes saving people. Sehun waves at him while the car drives away. 

He looks so miserable. He looks so small and fragile. Sehun blinks a few times to make sure _they_ ’re not tweaking what he sees again, but when he reopens his eyes, the same sight spreads at his feet. Jongdae is walking between the rows of seats, the movie credits still unfolding on the screen, and Sehun feels like he’s never seen anything sadder. The voices catch on his thoughts, and his mind is suddenly filled with sobbing kids, dying mothers, crumbling fathers, and blood, so much blood. Sehun dismisses it with a shake of his head. In the room, Jongdae immediately crouches down, his heart slightly speeding up. Sehun can’t refrain a smile. It’s still Jongdae.

There are so many thoughts. So many. Some of them are his, some of them are not. It gets steadier and steadier, and also easier to pick up what comes from his mind and what doesn’t, but everything is so deconstructed, detached. It’s all dissociated. Now, he can read the hints, he can sit down and think of a plan. He needs Thorne out, he needs to show Jongdae and Dahye. He needs to kill Thorne. It’s broken, it goes everywhere. Sehun is learning, little by little, to choose his fights carefully. He’s leaving the basics to the voices, he gives them his eyes and his mind, but in exchange, he keeps his thoughts, he keeps his feelings. They’re buried under the chaos, under the blood and the fear. Sehun can dig. And dig, he does. Day after day. It gives him a sense of regularity. At least now he’s aware of the days passing by. 

The drug. Sehun looks at the pills in his hand, the pretty shade of blue makes him think of frozen corpses. It’s the same shade of blue than the serum. He knows where the serum comes from now. He’s looked for it. It’s Thorne and this shabby lab with scientists that are too clever for their own good. They’ve tried for so long after his death to make the serum work, but it didn’t. They don’t know it worked for him, and Sehun doesn’t want them to know, so he hides his face. He thought he had stopped them. He’s not even sure it really happened. Maybe he dreamed it. Maybe it was just a whisper in his head. But whatever it was, clearly, it wasn’t definitive. He blinks at the pill in his hand, and it takes him a couple of seconds to remember what it is. The drug. Its pretty shade of blue reminds him of frozen corpses. It’s the same shade of blue than the serum. Makes sense. It comes from the serum. If you can’t make super soldiers, make a super drug and fill your pockets with money. Is that a Disney song? Sehun feels like it is. He swears he can hear Thorne sing it. He can’t let other people hear the voices. He made the right choice by coming back.

It doesn’t work. The room is dark and closed, and small, but Sehun sees it bright red, open and big. There’s a stair, and it leads him back to Thorne, back to his revenge. He wakes up screaming, and he sees the stair. It doesn’t work. Why did he even try? He’ll never fix it. The voices are loud, so loud. He doesn’t even remember the name of that boy he keeps saying, but he knows it must have been beautiful. He's painfully aware that when he first got here, away from civilization, he still had a bit of control over himself. He still knew who he was and what had happened. Now, all he knows is that Thorne is alive, Thorne is alive, Thorne is alive. _He_ doesn’t feel alive. How long has it been? He can’t remember. He wants to go out, he wants to go back. The door stands firmly, blocking his way out, and Sehun watches, dumbstruck, the huge _DON’T LEAVE UNTIL IT’S ALL FIXED_ scribbled over the paint. The letters dance in front of his eyes. The voices laugh. _THORNE IS ALIVE._ Sehun smashes the door down.

Dahye is sitting on the right seat and Jongdae on the left. Sehun isn’t sure why, but he thinks it’s a detail worth remembering. He can feel his mind slip between his fingers, and he wonders if he’ll really remember it. It only makes him more determined about his decision. He has to leave Port Ville until he can control himself. His thoughts are going nowhere, and it’s happening more and more now. Sometimes, he has to go back, to use key words to remember what he was thinking of at first. It’s mostly Jongdae and Dahye anyway, but he has a feeling that soon, it won’t mean as much. He’s so scared. He adjusts the hood on his head, and watches through the café’s window as the waitress puts two cups of coffee on the table. Dahye is sitting on the right seat, and Jongdae on the left. They look so sad. Her eyes are puffy, her hair dirty and dull. Jongdae has been watching the table without blinking for ten minutes already. He’d give so much to go sit with them. But then he blinks, and Dahye is suddenly headless, the flesh on her neck rotten. Jongdae’s eyes are liquefying and trickling down his cheekbones. Sehun closes his eyes, his heart thrashing against his ribcage and a scared sob stuck in the back of his throat. He needs to go. Now.

Sehun’s eyes open. He gasps, convinced that no oxygen will ever enter his lungs again, but it does. For some reasons, it scares him even more. Someone laughs on his right, and Sehun startles. There’s no one on his right. Someone laughs on his left. Sehun whimpers because there’s no one on his left either. There’s no one at all. He sits up, eyes the burnt planks covering his legs and the ashes staining his bare skin. There’s no one but he can hear so much. He looks at his hands, at his new and soft skin. Someone is laughing so loudly in his head, it hurts, it hurts so much. Where are Jongdae and Dahye? He needs to tell them he survived, he needs to - _Did you really though?_ Sehun freezes. He clearly remembers the silence before the explosion, but the silence is gone now. He can hear the swell so distinctively. He thinks someone is fishing a few feet away from the coast. It hurts.

But nothing hurts as much as the explosion. The blast is tangible. Sehun does feel it. It has teeth and hands and feet, and it gnaws, it punches and kicks. He thinks it took his arm. It broke his bones. It snapped his leg. Nothing hurts as much as the blast, not even the flames that come after. Sehun lets them come. They’ll take the pain away. His eyes fall on a broken tube lying next to him, and if he had the strength he would laugh. He can’t believe he did not want to die. It’s all he wants now. All he wants. He closes his eyes.

_Jongdae_

Jongdae withdraws as a shock runs through his body. His lungs empty themselves, and he gasps for air. His hands clench on Sehun’s hands, his forehead still pressed on his nape. Sehun’s fingers slowly unwrap themselves and they let go of Jongdae’s hands to dig under his sleeves. There, they curl around his wrists, press against Jongdae’s veins, digging until they catch his pulse. Jongdae’s breathing is echoing through the room, loud and erratic. He barely can see through the tears flooding his mind, but he’s never needed his eyes to see anyway. He pulls one of his hand away and starts digging too, until it finally reaches Sehun’s heart. It beats so loudly. It feels so alive. 

Jongdae closes his eyes and fragments of Sehun’s thoughts flash on the back of his eyelids. He tightens his hold and presses his lips against Sehun’s nape in a kiss that never ends. His power sends a tingle through his mouth when it rushes there, and the tingle turns into a pleasant buzzing once it blooms around his mind while sucking Sehun’s in. He plays with synapses, connections and broken nerve endings. He feels the madness creeping in, but Jongdae stops it. He sews new thoughts, new details over Sehun’s eyelids, and soon enough, Port Ville’s scenery shrinks until it’s just the pink neon sign in front of Jongdae’s window. The blood and the broken bones constantly trying to take over Sehun’s sight crumble down, reduced to ashes by the flashy glow of the sign. Jongdae faintly hears Sehun take a shallow breath. His attention is focused on his mind, as the latter is a constant battlefield, and Jongdae needs to win that fight.

He writes words in Sehun’s mind, and they manage to stay long enough for Sehun to register them. His hands are lighter around Jongdae’s wrists now, softer. Jongdae’s lips still tingle against his neck. 

It’s merely a break, not even a cease fire, but Jongdae does everything he can for Sehun’s conscience to remain on that pink glow. Something else tries to link it to bruises and open wounds, to pain and suffering, but Jongdae keeps fighting. He tweaks nerve endings, he tweaks both his and Sehun’s sights until the pink glow looks oddly familiar. Now, it matches the marks left by lips over pale skin, it matches kisses along jawlines. There’s no red, no back or blue. Just pink, faint and warm. 

And Port Ville has never looked more beautiful.   



	3. iii. rebirth

  
**iii. rebirth**   


“I have eyes on him, the … Eye?” Chanyeol says, in a hesitant voice.

Kyungsoo chuckles next to him, and Jongdae flashes him an amused smile. It’s almost scary to see Kyungsoo laughs when he’s wearing his costume, since the mask on his lower face and the one covering his eyes freeze his features most of the time. The only physical sign that he’s laughing is in his eyebrows shooting up from behind the white mask and, coupled with the angry look carved in said mask, the effect is quite… disturbing. 

“Thank you, Inferno,” Dahye’s voice buzzes in their earpieces. 

“Sorry,” Chanyeol sighs. “But honestly… The Eye? Couldn’t you go with a better code name?”

“No, mister I have red hair so Inferno will sound so good. I’m the Eye because I see everything. And by everything I mean even you scratching your balls.”

“Fuck” Chanyeol curses. 

There’s some ruffling on the other side of the line, soon covered by Jongin’s chuckles. Jongdae lets out a sigh. 

“Come on, guys,” he says, pressing on his own earpiece. “Focus. Don’t forget who we’re dealing with tonight.”

Jongdae glances at Kyungsoo, pleased to see that the latter has shifted back into his serious mode. On the rooftop across from them, he catches both Jongin and Chanyeol’s silhouettes crouching down in the darkness. Chanyeol’s hair is far from being discreet and because he refused to have a hood in his costume, it catches every glare coming from the streetlights. Just like everyone, Jongdae likes teasing him about it, but he must admit that Chanyeol does look good in his Inferno suit. The same red is painted all over the inside of his cape, and when he swoops down on his prey, he looks like a phoenix. 

Oh. _That_ would have been a much better code name.

“He’s moving” Jongin says. 

Jongdae catches Jongin’s bird-like profile peeking out and he holds back a smile. 

“I saw. The Eye?”

“Yes, I confirm. He’s heading north.”

Jongdae and Kyungsoo exchange a look. After days and days of trying to catch him, it looks like tonight everything is finally going smoothly. Kyungsoo makes to get up, but Jongdae catches him by the wrist and shakes his head. Kyungsoo frowns at him, suspicious. 

“Inferno, Heize, I want you both after the guys he was talking to. I’m sending you Nameless.”

Kyungsoo pulls out from Jongdae’s grip. 

“What?!” he hisses with outrage just as Chanyeol’s voice goes, “Uh that still sounds ugly to me” in their ears. 

Jongdae presses a hand over Kyungsoo’s mouth before the latter can protest again – and blow up their cover by doing so. 

“He’s too dangerous, and you know it. Now stop sulking and go stop some bad guys.” He pauses and smirks. “And Park’s right. It does sound quite ugly.”

Kyungsoo pulls away again, but this time, he doesn’t protest. He glares at Jongdae though, in a very aggressive and intimidating way and silently straightens up, his cape flapping against his ankles. Jongdae watches him as he joins the fire escape staircases in a few strides, then follows his descent carefully. Kyungsoo starts mumbling when he’s halfway down. 

“Ugly,” he says. “I just don’t want a code name. It’s less ugly that freaking Alpha and stupid Inferno.”

Jongdae rolls his eyes but keeps their frequency clear, just in case. He gets closer to the edge and glances at the gloomy square down below. The four men they’ve been watching for the past half hour are still there, and from the sound of it, they’re bragging about the ‘deal’ they just made. Jongdae would snort if he wasn’t feeling so nervous. He looks for Chanyeol, Jongin and Kyungsoo and finally catch them moving slowly in the darkness of the alley. He thinks he hears Dahye holding her breath in his earpiece. 

Jongin is the first one to jump out of the darkness. The only streetlight left in the square barely lands on him that he has already swooped down on one of the men. The three others jump backwards with a yelp, and Jongin looks up at them, still crouched down on his first target’s chest. 

“Who the fuck are you?” one man says. “Hey, why are you wearing Heize’s costume? Isn’t she supposed to be a chick?”

He pulls out a gun from his belt. Something flies past him, and Jongdae’s heart misses a beat as he catches Chanyeol’s blade obviously missing its target and landing on the grass a few feet behind the armed man. The latter opens fire. 

Jongdae hastily gets back up on his feet, ready to jump from the roof, but Dahye’s voice stops him. 

“Wait!” she orders, and he does, even if he really doesn’t want to. 

He looks down. Both Kyungsoo and Chanyeol have come out of the darkness now. Chanyeol has disarmed the leader and is currently tackling him. Kyungsoo’s gangster already has his face pressed against the concrete as Kyungsoo pulls hard on his arm, and Jongin is easily dodging the last man’s messy punches. Something floods Jongdae’s heart that is not quite pride, but also not only relief. 

“I’m keeping my eyes on them,” Dahye says. She chuckles. “Pun intended. Now, go north.”

Jongdae’s heart leaps into his throat. It’s his turn now. Adrenaline immediately floods his veins and he welcomes it with pleasure as he dashes off towards the edge of the roof. A simple push on his legs has him flying over the dark alley and landing smoothly on the other roof. He can already hear him, so close, so relaxed. Jongdae has to tone down the feeling of victory already taking over him though, because he knows better than anyone else how difficult it is to actually stop him. They’ve been trying for the past few months after all. 

He immediately forks when he lands on a third roof, and when he reaches the edge, he doesn’t jump over the alley this time. He opens his arms wide and lets himself fall. His cape swells and flaps above his head, and for a very short second, Jongdae feels like he’s flying. He lands smoothly on the concrete, one knee down, and immediately looks up, his target just a couple of feet before him. 

Byun Baekhyun stops dead in his track. His eyes scrunch up under his shiny black locks as he smirks. His long fingers curl in the air. Jongdae straightens up, his heart beating wildly in his chest. 

Baekhyun glances over his shoulder, but another silhouette lands in the alley behind him, blocking his only way out. Baekhyun lets out a snicker as Sehun waves at him. 

“Well, well well,” he says in his teasing voice. His eyes go from Jongdae to Sehun, and his smiles widens. “Alpha _and_ Black Hood, all for me. You’re spoiling me, guys.”

He stretches his two arms with quick and sharp gestures, and two longs blades slip out of his sleeves, Baekhyun’s fingers closing around them. 

Jongdae and Sehun exchange a look over Baekhyun’s shoulder, and even though Sehun’s lips are hidden by his mask, his eye smile is quite revealing. 

Game on.

 

 

 

The little girl scrunches up her nose at her doll, her eyes filling with tears. Now, Lilac is all soaked and she smells funny. Furious, the girl kicks the puddle, and the puddle ripostes with a splash of muddy water over her new dress. Her mommy will scream at her so much for that, but the girl doesn’t care. Lilac has been avenged and it’s all that matters. She tears up when she realizes that Lilac’s pretty pink hair is now of a disgusting shade of brown though. She needs to run back home and ask mommy to put Lilac in the washing machine – even if Lilac loses her smell after that. It’s not like she hasn’t already lost it anyway. 

The little girl makes to rush back home, her hands shaking and her mind rambling about Lilac’s uncertain fate. She’s a well famous doctor after all, and she knows that Lilac must go through surgery _as fastest as possible_ if she wants to survive. Lilac is lucky though, she is the best surgeon in the country!

Just as she’s about to walk away, the little girl hears a familiar song. Confused, she looks around her, but the portion of street she’s in is empty. She frowns and listens closely. Yes! She knows that song! She takes a few more steps towards what she thinks is the source and freezes when her shoes stop on a manhole. She presses Lilac against her chest. 

The song does sound familiar though, and it picks up her interest, so much that it makes her forget her fear. She crouches down and brings her ear closer to the manhole, only to realize that the singing has stopped. Disappointed, she straightens up and presses Lilac against her cheek before remembering, when the soaked doll leaves a frozen kiss on her skin, that she has to rush back home to save her precious toy. She dashes off, humming the song, and finally realizes, with great pleasure, that she does know the lyrics.

“Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities, forget about your worries and your strife!” she sings out loud, and quite out of tune. 

She doesn’t care though. Singing Disney songs has always made her happy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who made it through! Don't be too harsh, it sucked and I know it haha  
> Titles for each chapters come from DC arcs.


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